The surprised pikachu face everybody is making about this reminded me of this Twitter video from earlier in the year. JL-10 crew bangs out into a bamboo grove with a Chinese stude clutching a shattered fetlock and mystery ginger gwailo instructor who didn't want to be filmed.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
It's going to be Iraq 2 all over again. In 10 years you won't be able to find anyone who will admit voting for it (most statistically dead in 10 years anyway) or thought it was a good idea.
🙋♂️
I thought Iraq 2 was a good idea.
Saddam Hussein was a vile monster and we were right to intervene to try to make things better. As we were with removing the Taliban.
That things didn't work out great is hindsight. Not everything you try works out great, but for evil to flourish all it requires is for good not to try.
Truss can't cling to power unless Tory MPs let her. If they haven't put in a letter yet then why are they despairing? Get the letters in and then SGB will have to act.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
I have already dealt with the Employer NI issue. You have a headcount tax on every employee and IR35 equivalent contractor paid by the end user company. This really isn't a barrier to the very sensible idea of simplifying the system by merging the two taxes.
Could you do the following:
1) Abolish employers NI 2) Ramp up the minimum wage to the amount the employers save by 1) 3) Abolish/cut back working tax credits due to the increased minimum wage
Ooo I like that a lot. Except I am not sure that the figures would balance. How much does working tax credits cost compared to how much is raised by employers NI?
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
Because it's creating a cost (verifying the issuing of voter cards for those without id when they don't have adequate id to prove who they are) that simply isn't necessary.
Especially when all recent voter fraud has been connected to postal voting and guess what method of voting doesn't require photographic evidence under the new regime.
Who is likely to be affected Employers, employees and the self-employed who are liable to pay National Insurance contributions and individuals that would be liable to pay National Insurance contributions were it not for pension age restrictions. Individuals who only pay Class 2 and Class 3 National Insurance contributions will not be affected.
The reason I know this is because some software I wrote had to override the NI age exclusion check..
Barty is correct. The levy only applies to earned income, not pensions.
not quite - if it impacts earned income it's still a change from how things work prior to April 2023.
Indeed so, but a small change only. Neither pension income nor earned income is subject to employee's NI for people over retirement age. The latter in particular has always struck me as absolutely barmy. For a government scrabbling around for money, I'd have thought this one was a no-brainer, even if it would cost me personally quite a lot.
It's going to grow as a source of lost income to the Gov't people enter retirement with less generous pensions than previous. One to extract income from sooner rather than later.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
I have already dealt with the Employer NI issue. You have a headcount tax on every employee and IR35 equivalent contractor paid by the end user company. This really isn't a barrier to the very sensible idea of simplifying the system by merging the two taxes.
Could you do the following:
1) Abolish employers NI 2) Ramp up the minimum wage to the amount the employers save by 1) 3) Abolish/cut back working tax credits due to the increased minimum wage
Ooo I like that a lot. Except I am not sure that the figures would balance. How much does working tax credits cost compared to how much is raised by employers NI?
Not going to the same people though - so there would still be a lot going out in working tax credits.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
I suspect it shows the malign influence of American politics - because the Republicans do try to make it harder for groups less likely to vote for them to vote and because the Democrats do use their billionaire supporters' money to try to buy votes directly from the groups more likely to vote for them, people automatically translater that across and assume bad intentions.
I tend to test proposed changes by assuming the proposed system had always been in place, and if it had, whould there be any significant drive to change it? Pretty clearly in this case the answer is no.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
Secure? Personation is not an issue. People have looked for it and find only small issues, usually with postal voting.
I suspect the Dasmascene conversion is because you hope that you might lose less seats under a PR system than you are going to under FPTP.
So the 35% who still think Brexit is right is significantly higher than the Tories are polling now.
Ask voters do you now want to rejoin the EU and the Eurozone and restore full free movement of EU migrants to the UK and you would get a different answer
The second part of that line unfortunately loses its powers when the Tories are letting in all sorts of unskilled migrants. Theresa May, for all her faults, was the only PM that genuinely got the problem and made real progress to address it. It caused a spike in pay at the bottom end of the income spectrum, that the Powers That Be want everyone to ignore/forget.
We could simply enforce the requirements for immigrants to be able to sustain themselves and/or find gainful employment within 1 month of arrival as other EU members do.
It was surely not beyond the wit of man to require a registered address and police it.
This doesn't achieve anything because even if you (a) implement an expensive monitoring system to identify those that aren't and (b) pay for even more expensive deportation arrangements, they can still come right back.
It also doesn't affect those that are on minimum wage income and prevent certain occupations ever increasing beyond that floor.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
It's a non-issue (but the other way around).
We have minimal voter fraud in GB (and those cases we do have are unaffected by at-polling-station ID verification).
We do have widespread identity theft used to order e.g. mobile phones and then steal parcels.
So we *should* have ID to collect a parcel. But ID for voting has no meaningful benefit and some risk of voter suppression.
So don't waste Parliamentary time on this (at best) non-issue.
Voters it seems just despise pure libertarian leaders.
You can't extrapolate anything from Braverman's numbers. No one knows who she is. Her 'favourability' ratings are lower than Truss
Amongst Conservative 2019 voters Braverman has a 24% favourable rating to just 20% for Truss and they are the voters who might actually vote Conservative.
71% of even 2019 Conservative voters have an unfavourable view of Truss now
Trying to make a case for Braverman who is just 4% ahead of the hapless Truss who is now persona non grata in her position as PM
You need to accept your right wing views are being marginalised just as Corbynites were
I have already said I would back Sunak now to save the furniture as I voted for Sunak over the ERG backed Truss in the summer anyway, so stop sprouting rubbish.
My point was merely even Braverman is more popular than Truss now with 2019 Conservative voters
The notion of a "unity" replacement looks fantastical to me.
With the schisms in the party a unity figure would have to be either (i) a politician of such ability and reputation that people would bury their differences in support of them, or (ii) somebody so weak and bland that everyone could project onto them what they wish to see.
There's no-one who fits (i) as far as I can see. And if you go for a (ii) what will happen is either they'll define themselves one way or another in office, in which case bang goes the unity, or it'll turn out they truly are weak and bland, in which case that's another poor choice for PM to join the last 3.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
Because it's creating a cost (verifying the issuing of voter cards for those without id when they don't have adequate id to prove who they are) that simply isn't necessary.
Especially when all recent voter fraud has been connected to postal voting and guess what method of voting doesn't require photographic evidence under the new regime.
Postal voting on demand should be abolished, but just because there's a problem with element B of a system doesn't mean you can't address a problem with element A of the system.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
Secure? Personation is not an issue. People have looked for it and find only small issues, usually with postal voting.
I suspect the Dasmascene conversion is because you hope that you might lose less seats under a PR system than you are going to under FPTP.
It's going to be Iraq 2 all over again. In 10 years you won't be able to find anyone who will admit voting for it (most statistically dead in 10 years anyway) or thought it was a good idea.
🙋♂️
I thought Iraq 2 was a good idea.
Saddam Hussein was a vile monster and we were right to intervene to try to make things better. As we were with removing the Taliban.
That things didn't work out great is hindsight. Not everything you try works out great, but for evil to flourish all it requires is for good not to try.
I'm quite interested in what those two points were where "right and wrong" briefly approach each other again.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
I suspect it shows the malign influence of American politics - because the Republicans do try to make it harder for groups less likely to vote for them to vote and because the Democrats do use their billionaire supporters' money to try to buy votes directly from the groups more likely to vote for them, people automatically translater that across and assume bad intentions.
I tend to test proposed changes by assuming the proposed system had always been in place, and if it had, whould there be any significant drive to change it? Pretty clearly in this case the answer is no.
Yes because
1) there is a unnecessary admin cost in issuing voter cards 2) the hassle of getting a voter card will stop some groups from voting 3) postal vote ignores the whole issue (and is where the only issues have been found)
So you've created an additional cost, reduced voting numbers and not solved the issue.
It was interesting following both BBC & ITV News last night because both sets of commentators described the state of shell-shock among Conservative MPs.
There are a few on here for whom the penny has still not yet dropped. The Conservatives are going to lose the next General Election very heavily. You simply don't come back from 30% poll deficits.
Even in 1992-7 when the economy was in stellar state, Labour still won with a lead of 12.5%.
What trashed the Conservatives in 1997 was what happened 4.5 years before on Black Wednesday. I remember that day and it was (until now) unprecedented. It wasn't just what actually happened in economic terms, it was the sense of a Government which was totally out of control. It was completely chaotic. The pound crashed, the BoE burned £10bn trying to save it, and interest rates rose twice, then fell and we ejected from the ERM. It was chaos.
What happened that day trashed the tory's reputation for economic competence.
Roll on quarter of a century and they've done it again, only this time far worse. The utter chaos. The total shambles. The zillion U-turns. The now-unprecedented sense of a Government in office but not in power. It is gobsmacking.
But what is FAR FAR worse for the Conservatives this time around is that unlike 1997, the fiscal economic outlook is very grim. We are heading INTO recession, with high inflation, higher interest rates, public sector borrowing out of control, public services already on their knees now coming under further constraints, and a terrible cost of living crisis.
Quite simply, anyone who even entertains for one second the notion that the tories can win the next election is living in cloud cuckoo land.
The only question now is: how big a defeat will they suffer?
Nothing in your post is wrong, including the conclusion.
But you’ve put all your chips on one factor.
Two other considerations are, firstly, the stronger position of Labour in 1997, with a popular charismatic leader besting the government in parliament, and a prepared policy programme which was both costed to reassure the markets and packaged into the five pledges to sell to the public.
Starmer has some heavy lifting to do to achieve the same, and is hard to see his personality ever generating the same enthusiasm as there was for Blair.
And, secondly, it’s an established fact that voters feel more able to invest in a centre-left government when things are improving and there’s money to spend on better services. Whereas in hard and worsening times, voters typically look to the right. Pack ignores this factor which worked against the improving economy reviving the Tories - it was the improving economy that made Labour’s promises of better schools and hospitals credible.
As I say, I accept your conclusion, but still feel the Tories have the ability to run Labour closer than in 1997, if they get their act together (a big IF). And we’re still not seeing Labour walking by-election victories, nationally or locally, in the way that they did in the 1990s.
The next election is to elect a government to sort out the most tremendous mess, which has never been Labour’s role. A huge challenge for Starmer’s team.
Labour had 'to sort out the most tremendous mess' in October 1964 when it inherited a record Balance of Payments Deficit from the outgoing Tory government. It did so again in March 1974 when the Tories bequeathed the 3 Day week and inflation above 13% and rising!
Can we assume, for the purpose of argument, that the present government staggers on until the spring. Managing somehow to avoid any further car crashes! By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
OKC , you cannot polish a turd
But you can roll it in glitter!
(Still stinks though, either way)
You can actually polish a turd. Liquid nitrogen to freeze it first etc etc. Done by some nerds at MIT, IIRC.
Indeed. I seem to remember an article (Ars?) suggesting that you can also sharpen frozen turds into (bad) knives. Not convinced by the hygiene of that!
The opposite, IIRC. There was a long-standing story of some explorer doing that, but the researchers tried and demonstrated that it doesn’t really work.
There is something to be said for being boring and competent. However, I doubt she would prevent a Tory wipeout in a general election. Why I still favour Penny as being the best option in the current circumstances. Having a government with a 100+ majority isn't really in anyone's interests.
Tory MP: “You know who they’re starting to talk about now?”
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
Because it's creating a cost (verifying the issuing of voter cards for those without id when they don't have adequate id to prove who they are) that simply isn't necessary.
Especially when all recent voter fraud has been connected to postal voting and guess what method of voting doesn't require photographic evidence under the new regime.
Postal voting on demand should be abolished, but just because there's a problem with element B of a system doesn't mean you can't address a problem with element A of the system.
What problem in element A. Remember there have been virtually zero cases of in-person voter fraud in the UK and that is the only thing the photo id requirements fix.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
It's going to be Iraq 2 all over again. In 10 years you won't be able to find anyone who will admit voting for it (most statistically dead in 10 years anyway) or thought it was a good idea.
Half the country will claim to have been on that People's Vote march!
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
I suspect it shows the malign influence of American politics - because the Republicans do try to make it harder for groups less likely to vote for them to vote and because the Democrats do use their billionaire supporters' money to try to buy votes directly from the groups more likely to vote for them, people automatically translater that across and assume bad intentions.
I tend to test proposed changes by assuming the proposed system had always been in place, and if it had, whould there be any significant drive to change it? Pretty clearly in this case the answer is no.
Yes because
1) there is a unnecessary admin cost in issuing voter cards 2) the hassle of getting a voter card will stop some groups from voting 3) postal vote ignores the whole issue (and is where the only issues have been found)
So you've created an additional cost, reduced voting numbers and not solved the issue.
And yet when these changes were made in NI it did actually have an impact on fraud there. Odd that.
Almost every democracy in the world, including parts of the UK, already requires voter ID. Making the rules Blair introduced consistent across the UK now that they've been shown to work there doesn't seem like a problem.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
Odd indeed. Which is why there is, ultimately, the nagging suspicion that this isn't being done for benign reasons.
It was interesting following both BBC & ITV News last night because both sets of commentators described the state of shell-shock among Conservative MPs.
There are a few on here for whom the penny has still not yet dropped. The Conservatives are going to lose the next General Election very heavily. You simply don't come back from 30% poll deficits.
Even in 1992-7 when the economy was in stellar state, Labour still won with a lead of 12.5%.
What trashed the Conservatives in 1997 was what happened 4.5 years before on Black Wednesday. I remember that day and it was (until now) unprecedented. It wasn't just what actually happened in economic terms, it was the sense of a Government which was totally out of control. It was completely chaotic. The pound crashed, the BoE burned £10bn trying to save it, and interest rates rose twice, then fell and we ejected from the ERM. It was chaos.
What happened that day trashed the tory's reputation for economic competence.
Roll on quarter of a century and they've done it again, only this time far worse. The utter chaos. The total shambles. The zillion U-turns. The now-unprecedented sense of a Government in office but not in power. It is gobsmacking.
But what is FAR FAR worse for the Conservatives this time around is that unlike 1997, the fiscal economic outlook is very grim. We are heading INTO recession, with high inflation, higher interest rates, public sector borrowing out of control, public services already on their knees now coming under further constraints, and a terrible cost of living crisis.
Quite simply, anyone who even entertains for one second the notion that the tories can win the next election is living in cloud cuckoo land.
The only question now is: how big a defeat will they suffer?
Nothing in your post is wrong, including the conclusion.
But you’ve put all your chips on one factor.
Two other considerations are, firstly, the stronger position of Labour in 1997, with a popular charismatic leader besting the government in parliament, and a prepared policy programme which was both costed to reassure the markets and packaged into the five pledges to sell to the public.
Starmer has some heavy lifting to do to achieve the same, and is hard to see his personality ever generating the same enthusiasm as there was for Blair.
And, secondly, it’s an established fact that voters feel more able to invest in a centre-left government when things are improving and there’s money to spend on better services. Whereas in hard and worsening times, voters typically look to the right. Pack ignores this factor which worked against the improving economy reviving the Tories - it was the improving economy that made Labour’s promises of better schools and hospitals credible.
As I say, I accept your conclusion, but still feel the Tories have the ability to run Labour closer than in 1997, if they get their act together (a big IF). And we’re still not seeing Labour walking by-election victories, nationally or locally, in the way that they did in the 1990s.
The next election is to elect a government to sort out the most tremendous mess, which has never been Labour’s role. A huge challenge for Starmer’s team.
Also, the markets have now closed off the ability to borrow to fund their manifesto. This is going to be raising the questions of which taxes are you going to raise to pay for it, Labour? On Newsnight last night, James Murray, Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was utterly woeful on economic policy. If he is indicative of what Labour are offering up, those opinion poll leads are going to look very transient....
In a two man race it doesn’t matter if you’re using a walking stick when your opponent has fallen over, broken both his legs, insulted the crowd, and, it emerges, was on the piss for several weeks beforehand.
No, but it means Labour could be a one-term administration.
Of course Labour could, but I am sure that once in power the theme will be sorting out the Tory mess and when the following election comes back the campaign will focus on not going back to the chaos of the Tory years.
Indeed so. 'Clearing up Labour's mess' still paid handsome dividends for the Tories in 2015. In 2029 Labour can refer to ' Clearing up the self inflicted Tory mess'.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
I suspect it shows the malign influence of American politics - because the Republicans do try to make it harder for groups less likely to vote for them to vote and because the Democrats do use their billionaire supporters' money to try to buy votes directly from the groups more likely to vote for them, people automatically translater that across and assume bad intentions.
I tend to test proposed changes by assuming the proposed system had always been in place, and if it had, whould there be any significant drive to change it? Pretty clearly in this case the answer is no.
I'd say that comparisons with the USA don't apply - though perhaps attempts at comparisons are being somewhat weaponised in the debate.
As reported in a fairly full survey:
Of 47 nations surveyed in Europe—a place where, on other matters, American progressives often look to with envy—all but one country requires a government-issued photo voter ID to vote. The exception is the U.K., and even there voter IDs are mandatory in Northern Ireland for all elections and in parts of England for local elections. https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/06/01/in-europe-voter-id-is-the-norm/
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
Because it's creating a cost (verifying the issuing of voter cards for those without id when they don't have adequate id to prove who they are) that simply isn't necessary.
Especially when all recent voter fraud has been connected to postal voting and guess what method of voting doesn't require photographic evidence under the new regime.
Postal voting on demand should be abolished, but just because there's a problem with element B of a system doesn't mean you can't address a problem with element A of the system.
What problem in element A. Remember there have been virtually zero cases of in-person voter fraud in the UK and that is the only thing the photo id requirements fix.
The same one as when Tony Blair fixed it for Northern Ireland only.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
Who is likely to be affected Employers, employees and the self-employed who are liable to pay National Insurance contributions and individuals that would be liable to pay National Insurance contributions were it not for pension age restrictions. Individuals who only pay Class 2 and Class 3 National Insurance contributions will not be affected.
The reason I know this is because some software I wrote had to override the NI age exclusion check..
Barty is correct. The levy only applies to earned income, not pensions.
not quite - if it impacts earned income it's still a change from how things work prior to April 2023.
Indeed so, but a small change only. Neither pension income nor earned income is subject to employee's NI for people over retirement age. The latter in particular has always struck me as absolutely barmy. For a government scrabbling around for money, I'd have thought this one was a no-brainer, even if it would cost me personally quite a lot.
It's going to grow as a source of lost income to the Gov't people enter retirement with less generous pensions than previous. One to extract income from sooner rather than later.
Yes, exactly. It should have been done some time ago, when there would have been few people affected and so the political opposition would have been slight. The longer the anomaly persists, the louder the squeals will be when it is eventually corrected. Osborne should have done it, 2010-2015 was the perfect opportunity..
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
Odd indeed. Which is why there is, ultimately, the nagging suspicion that this isn't being done for benign reasons.
It's hard to imagine anything Priti Patel spent time on was for benign reasons - she changed whole voting systems for clearly political reasons
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
You do know that NI has had a somewhat different political context to GB, don’t you? Several thousand dead from an ethnographic-nationalist conflict. Remember that? It’s patent nonsense to equate the GB situation with the NI one.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
How do you verify that a person actually has the right to vote in the UK? The lack of presentation of a driving licence / passport makes it way harder to verify that a person has the right to vote.
It's very similar to problems I'm hearing regarding right to work checks - it's very difficult for firms to confirm people without passports can work in the UK.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
Because it's creating a cost (verifying the issuing of voter cards for those without id when they don't have adequate id to prove who they are) that simply isn't necessary.
Especially when all recent voter fraud has been connected to postal voting and guess what method of voting doesn't require photographic evidence under the new regime.
Postal voting on demand should be abolished, but just because there's a problem with element B of a system doesn't mean you can't address a problem with element A of the system.
What problem in element A. Remember there have been virtually zero cases of in-person voter fraud in the UK and that is the only thing the photo id requirements fix.
Surely the fairest form of voter ID would be a Conservative Party membership photo card. That way ALL potential voter fraud is removed.
You do know that NI has had a somewhat different political context to GB, don’t you? Several thousand dead from an ethnographic-nationalist conflict. Remember that? It’s patent nonsense to equate the GB situation with the NI one.
You are right, of course, but it's also patent nonsense to claim that extending the requirement for photo ID to the rest of the country is some kind of unprecedented assault on democracy; it's a perfectly normal thing in every other country in Europe. It may not be something worth doing, but it's hardly some great affront to civilisation.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
I suspect it shows the malign influence of American politics - because the Republicans do try to make it harder for groups less likely to vote for them to vote and because the Democrats do use their billionaire supporters' money to try to buy votes directly from the groups more likely to vote for them, people automatically translater that across and assume bad intentions.
I tend to test proposed changes by assuming the proposed system had always been in place, and if it had, whould there be any significant drive to change it? Pretty clearly in this case the answer is no.
Yes because
1) there is a unnecessary admin cost in issuing voter cards 2) the hassle of getting a voter card will stop some groups from voting 3) postal vote ignores the whole issue (and is where the only issues have been found)
So you've created an additional cost, reduced voting numbers and not solved the issue.
And yet when these changes were made in NI it did actually have an impact on fraud there. Odd that.
Almost every democracy in the world, including parts of the UK, already requires voter ID. Making the rules Blair introduced consistent across the UK now that they've been shown to work there doesn't seem like a problem.
I have a dislike of voter id cards because there isn't a problem that needs to be fixed.
Now if you were suggesting a national ID card that would then be used to validate voter ID I would be far happier because that would solve a whole set of problems and add a secondary benefit - but hey that wouldn't solve a non existent problem.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Nearly everyone in these pilots who went to their polling station to vote was able to show ID without difficulty, as in 2018. Out of all those who went to their polling station, the proportion who couldn’t show ID and who did not return to vote ranged from 0.03% to 0.7%.
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
How do you verify that a person actually has the right to vote in the UK? The lack of presentation of a driving licence / passport makes it way harder to verify that a person has the right to vote.
It's very similar to problems I'm hearing regarding right to work checks - it's very difficult for firms to confirm people without passports can work in the UK.
I always assumed that initial registrations are checked pretty stringently(*), but it's a very long time since I first registered to vote. After that it's always been a case of giving the previous address where registered so that it could be verified against a previous entry.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
I don't buy the idea that personation is an NI only problem. People have gone to lengths to commit fraud in this country at elections which is why the independent Electoral Commission recommended that NIs rules get implemented nationwide.
Can personisation be a problem in the UK system? Yes, definitely, we know that. NI has proved that.
Do people want to commit electoral fraud in GB? Yes, definitely, multiple trials in courts of law and convictions have proven that.
Is there a method to implement voter ID that cuts fraud but doesn't disenfranchise people? Yes, it's worked for 20 years now.
What's good for the NI goose is good for the British gander too.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
Odd indeed. Which is why there is, ultimately, the nagging suspicion that this isn't being done for benign reasons.
There is something to be said for being boring and competent. However, I doubt she would prevent a Tory wipeout in a general election. Why I still favour Penny as being the best option in the current circumstances. Having a government with a 100+ majority isn't really in anyone's interests.
Tory MP: “You know who they’re starting to talk about now?”
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
The Electoral Commission didn't think so, but certainly there were a few high profile cases of left-wing activists performatively "being denied their right to vote" for the cameras and newspapers.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
I don't buy the idea that personation is an NI only problem. People have gone to lengths to commit fraud in this country at elections which is why the independent Electoral Commission recommended that NIs rules get implemented nationwide.
Can personisation be a problem in the UK system? Yes, definitely, we know that. NI has proved that.
Do people want to commit electoral fraud in GB? Yes, definitely, multiple trials in courts of law and convictions have proven that.
Is there a method to implement voter ID that cuts fraud but doesn't disenfranchise people? Yes, it's worked for 20 years now.
What's good for the NI goose is good for the British gander too.
We know personation isn't a problem at GB elections. We also know that voter ID does disenfranchise people. You are trying to argue from first principles things that have been demonstrated to be false in reality. Why?
So when the cuts come Labours message will be the country is now paying the price for the mini budget with public services cut to add to the misery of the mortgage hikes .
All roads lead back to Truss in the blame game.
Tory MPs are delusional if they think she can stay in post .
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Nearly everyone in these pilots who went to their polling station to vote was able to show ID without difficulty, as in 2018. Out of all those who went to their polling station, the proportion who couldn’t show ID and who did not return to vote ranged from 0.03% to 0.7%.
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
"Went to the polling station and got turned away" would be a subset of the people who were prevented from voting. The other part you need is what proportion would have gone, but didn't bother because they weren't confident they'd got ID on them that they'd need to vote when they got there.
I think the political history of this crisis really needs to focus on (and begin with) the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The tories reacted by ditching sensible and pursuing various incarnations of fantasy and nutty in the belief they could get away with it and take the voters with them, ever since.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
They got drunk on power.
This time, there really is no money left.
Yes, this crisis is all Labour's fault. LoL
Margaret Beckett’s fault, to be specific.
The trail of damage that she has caused puts her up there with…well, you can imagine.
No - Harriet Harman should carry the can for Corbyn's election in 2015.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Nearly everyone in these pilots who went to their polling station to vote was able to show ID without difficulty, as in 2018. Out of all those who went to their polling station, the proportion who couldn’t show ID and who did not return to vote ranged from 0.03% to 0.7%.
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
"Went to the polling station and got turned away" would be a subset of the people who were prevented from voting. The other part you need is what proportion would have gone, but didn't bother because they weren't confident they'd got ID on them that they'd need to vote when they got there.
"Across all models the main reason cited for not voting was lack of time: 20% in the poll card model, 13% in the mixed model, and 20% in the photographic model. Very few stated a reason related to not having the correct ID (34 out of 1,749 who said they did not vote, or 2%), a similar proportion to 2018 pilots"
You do know that NI has had a somewhat different political context to GB, don’t you? Several thousand dead from an ethnographic-nationalist conflict. Remember that? It’s patent nonsense to equate the GB situation with the NI one.
You are right, of course, but it's also patent nonsense to claim that extending the requirement for photo ID to the rest of the country is some kind of unprecedented assault on democracy; it's a perfectly normal thing in every other country in Europe. It may not be something worth doing, but it's hardly some great affront to civilisation.
Something doesn’t have to be a great affront to civilisation to be worth opposing.
Most European countries have ID cards. We don’t in the UK. That’s something many Conservatives, many with a libertarian bent, are proud of. Yet suddenly they all do a 180 for this issue. Could that possibly be to do with how we know such a system disproportionately discourages some groups from voting?
You do know that NI has had a somewhat different political context to GB, don’t you? Several thousand dead from an ethnographic-nationalist conflict. Remember that? It’s patent nonsense to equate the GB situation with the NI one.
You are right, of course, but it's also patent nonsense to claim that extending the requirement for photo ID to the rest of the country is some kind of unprecedented assault on democracy; it's a perfectly normal thing in every other country in Europe. It may not be something worth doing, but it's hardly some great affront to civilisation.
Precisely this. So left-wingers devoting so much energy to fighting against this makes me (a) doubt their motives and (b) take their other complaints less seriously.
There is something to be said for being boring and competent. However, I doubt she would prevent a Tory wipeout in a general election. Why I still favour Penny as being the best option in the current circumstances. Having a government with a 100+ majority isn't really in anyone's interests.
Tory MP: “You know who they’re starting to talk about now?”
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
The Electoral Commission didn't think so, but certainly there were a few high profile cases of left-wing activists performatively "being denied their right to vote" for the cameras and newspapers.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
I don't buy the idea that personation is an NI only problem. People have gone to lengths to commit fraud in this country at elections which is why the independent Electoral Commission recommended that NIs rules get implemented nationwide.
Can personisation be a problem in the UK system? Yes, definitely, we know that. NI has proved that.
Do people want to commit electoral fraud in GB? Yes, definitely, multiple trials in courts of law and convictions have proven that.
Is there a method to implement voter ID that cuts fraud but doesn't disenfranchise people? Yes, it's worked for 20 years now.
What's good for the NI goose is good for the British gander too.
We know personation isn't a problem at GB elections. We also know that voter ID does disenfranchise people. You are trying to argue from first principles things that have been demonstrated to be false in reality. Why?
Upthread someone was complaining that the government was undercutting the Electoral Commission.
Now you're complaining that the government is implementing the recommendation of the Electoral Commission.
There is something to be said for being boring and competent. However, I doubt she would prevent a Tory wipeout in a general election. Why I still favour Penny as being the best option in the current circumstances. Having a government with a 100+ majority isn't really in anyone's interests.
Tory MP: “You know who they’re starting to talk about now?”
Ben Wallace has hastily cancelled an early afternoon appearance before the Commons defence committee for an urgent trip to Washington DC, prompting speculation as to the purpose of the visit.
James Heappey... suggested that Wallace would be having “the sort of conversations” that had to take place face to face.
What’s the common view as to what this is? The Belarus issue?
One of the notable things about this conflict is that Western governments have been fairly open about what they know and about what they will, or won't, do in response.
A face to face conversation implies something where you want to make extra effort to keep the discussion secret and/or you have to make absolutely sure that the two people having the discussion fully understand each other. So that seems quite significant.
Bearing in mind also that Wallace was in Brussels for the regulate NATO meeting just last week, with all the other NATO defence ministers, and it suggests a sudden and severe development.
In short, I fear that Leon might be right about something.
Or, it could be for the purpose of a dressing down for RAF pilots training the Chinese.
I think the pilot issue is also true for other countries - Canada, Australia?.
Agree it sounds important. Something to do with protecting Ua against Putin's latest attacks on power stations (reportedly 30% attacked in the last week), or something on nuclear policy (a coordinated warning?) - which is genuinely a UKUSA question within NATO, or intelligence related?
AFAIK there are not really any military support options where UK adds a significant extra practical capability to the USA, other than making it international.
Are there any capabilities where UK involvement could give cover to break into a new category of support? Tanks, ATACMS, Tomahawk even?
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
I don't buy the idea that personation is an NI only problem. People have gone to lengths to commit fraud in this country at elections which is why the independent Electoral Commission recommended that NIs rules get implemented nationwide.
Can personisation be a problem in the UK system? Yes, definitely, we know that. NI has proved that.
Do people want to commit electoral fraud in GB? Yes, definitely, multiple trials in courts of law and convictions have proven that.
Is there a method to implement voter ID that cuts fraud but doesn't disenfranchise people? Yes, it's worked for 20 years now.
What's good for the NI goose is good for the British gander too.
Personation in GB voting is very rare, unlike in NI. I thought you believed in a smaller state? Why does an almost non-existent problem require a costly state intervention?
I think the political history of this crisis really needs to focus on (and begin with) the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The tories reacted by ditching sensible and pursuing various incarnations of fantasy and nutty in the belief they could get away with it and take the voters with them, ever since.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
They got drunk on power.
This time, there really is no money left.
Yes, this crisis is all Labour's fault. LoL
Margaret Beckett’s fault, to be specific.
The trail of damage that she has caused puts her up there with…well, you can imagine.
No - Harriet Harman should carry the can for Corbyn's election in 2015.
Eric Joyce.
...a Scotsman flaps his wings in the Strangers' Bar...
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
The Electoral Commission didn't think so, but certainly there were a few high profile cases of left-wing activists performatively "being denied their right to vote" for the cameras and newspapers.
You do know that NI has had a somewhat different political context to GB, don’t you? Several thousand dead from an ethnographic-nationalist conflict. Remember that? It’s patent nonsense to equate the GB situation with the NI one.
You are right, of course, but it's also patent nonsense to claim that extending the requirement for photo ID to the rest of the country is some kind of unprecedented assault on democracy; it's a perfectly normal thing in every other country in Europe. It may not be something worth doing, but it's hardly some great affront to civilisation.
Precisely this. So left-wingers devoting so much energy to fighting against this makes me (a) doubt their motives and (b) take their other complaints less seriously.
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
Hunt yesterday made several interesting comments about this in the context of responding to questions. Firstly, he rejected the suggestion that this was going to be anything like as severe as 2010. Secondly, he said that he expected cash budgets to continue to increase (impliedly accepting that they will fall in real terms). Thirdly, he was clearly open to yet more taxes to close some of the gap including a potential windfall tax. But fourthly, he unequivocally promised that debt would be falling as a share of GDP almost immediately.
That last one is going to be very hard to deliver when we have the cost of 6 months of the energy scheme to accommodate. I think a VAT increase is almost inevitable now. I just don't see where else sufficient money comes from. I think it would be sensible to eliminate VAT on fuel and possibly hot food to reduce the regressive elements but with the interest rate bill growing substantially in real terms as well I do not see any other way to square the circle in the short term.
Inflation is the killer here. VAT will drive inflation even further. At 10% inflation will turn flat cash budgets into major cuts.
Yes, but the energy scheme, for all its many faults and extreme cost, is supposed to be clipping 5% off inflation. I suspect that was for a full year of the scheme and 6 months will have a smaller effect but inflation has probably already peaked, at least in the short term. The other effect of inflation is of course fiscal drag. Many more people are going to be paying more income tax on wages that have probably fallen in real terms. They are not going to be happy.
I don’t think that’s the way fiscal drag works
Effectively let’s say you get a £1000 pay rise. But you are now above the threshold (because it hasn’t increased).
Hence you get less from your pay rise net of tax than you might have expected
I’m not sure that people really notice that specifically - they grumble about cost of living, about small pay rises, etc. but I don’t think they isolate the impact of tax. It’s why the treasury likes it so much.
Tories love fiscal drag. It appeals to their raison d'etre. If a freeze in allowances is combined with a headline grabbing cut in the basic rate of income tax, so as to be revenue neutral overall, then it amounts to a cut in income taxes for the higher paid but an increase in taxes for the lower paid.
I know you are just making a silly partisan point so I shouldn’t respond with facts… but… your maths doesn’t work
Typically the upper rate thresholds are also frozen. The only people who benefit in your scenario are people who earn below the frozen threshold (who benefit from the cut but don’t get hit by the drag)
On the "preventing people from voting" tangent: I lost the right to vote after 15 years out of the UK, then back in May as I heard the government had passed the bill enacting "votes for life" so I tried to re-register. But the electoral services officer told me they couldn't accept my application yet because the government hadn't passed secondary legislation for it. Does anyone know when they're going to get around to doing this?
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
The Electoral Commission didn't think so, but certainly there were a few high profile cases of left-wing activists performatively "being denied their right to vote" for the cameras and newspapers.
From there they say just taking your voting card in may be enough
Any ID requirement should ensure accessibility for all voters
Alternatively, it could involve allowing voters to use their poll card – on the current model or a different model – as the primary or secondary route to proving identity, depending on the level of security required.
You do know that NI has had a somewhat different political context to GB, don’t you? Several thousand dead from an ethnographic-nationalist conflict. Remember that? It’s patent nonsense to equate the GB situation with the NI one.
You are right, of course, but it's also patent nonsense to claim that extending the requirement for photo ID to the rest of the country is some kind of unprecedented assault on democracy; it's a perfectly normal thing in every other country in Europe. It may not be something worth doing, but it's hardly some great affront to civilisation.
Precisely this. So left-wingers devoting so much energy to fighting against this makes me (a) doubt their motives and (b) take their other complaints less seriously.
Ironic
Not really. I support the change, but I wouldn't be fussed if it weren't introduced - provided the reason for not introducing it is valid (and nobody has yet come up with such a reason - "our voters are too stupid to get free ID" is not a valid reason).
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to be PM.
Tories best chance of turning this round is Sunak as PM - keep Hunt as Chancellor - keep Wallace where he is - Mordaunt FS.
How to make this happen and what to do with Truss? Would she demand a cabinet position to save some face as a condition of resigning?
The thing that LP wants is for Truss to stay PM - therefore the Tories must not do this.
You have the right top three but need to rotate them. Mordaunt as PM, Sunak as Chancellor, Hunt as FS.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Nearly everyone in these pilots who went to their polling station to vote was able to show ID without difficulty, as in 2018. Out of all those who went to their polling station, the proportion who couldn’t show ID and who did not return to vote ranged from 0.03% to 0.7%.
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
"Went to the polling station and got turned away" would be a subset of the people who were prevented from voting. The other part you need is what proportion would have gone, but didn't bother because they weren't confident they'd got ID on them that they'd need to vote when they got there.
"Across all models the main reason cited for not voting was lack of time: 20% in the poll card model, 13% in the mixed model, and 20% in the photographic model. Very few stated a reason related to not having the correct ID (34 out of 1,749 who said they did not vote, or 2%), a similar proportion to 2018 pilots"
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Nearly everyone in these pilots who went to their polling station to vote was able to show ID without difficulty, as in 2018. Out of all those who went to their polling station, the proportion who couldn’t show ID and who did not return to vote ranged from 0.03% to 0.7%.
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
"Went to the polling station and got turned away" would be a subset of the people who were prevented from voting. The other part you need is what proportion would have gone, but didn't bother because they weren't confident they'd got ID on them that they'd need to vote when they got there.
"Across all models the main reason cited for not voting was lack of time: 20% in the poll card model, 13% in the mixed model, and 20% in the photographic model. Very few stated a reason related to not having the correct ID (34 out of 1,749 who said they did not vote, or 2%), a similar proportion to 2018 pilots"
Turnout unaffected, so not all liars.
2% is 2%. 2% were disenfranchised. I want turnout to be as high as possible.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
The Electoral Commission didn't think so, but certainly there were a few high profile cases of left-wing activists performatively "being denied their right to vote" for the cameras and newspapers.
From there they say just taking your voting card in may be enough
Any ID requirement should ensure accessibility for all voters
Alternatively, it could involve allowing voters to use their poll card – on the current model or a different model – as the primary or secondary route to proving identity, depending on the level of security required.
There's no technical reason AFAIK why a photo can't be added to the registration database at the registration stage and then printed on the polling card.
On the "preventing people from voting" tangent: I lost the right to vote after 15 years out of the UK, then back in May as I heard the government had passed the bill enacting "votes for life" so I tried to re-register. But the electoral services officer told me they couldn't accept my application yet because the government hadn't passed secondary legislation for it. Does anyone know when they're going to get around to doing this?
Just had a look - it just says “date to be appointed”. Section 14 of the Elections Act 2022 if you’re interested.
There is something to be said for being boring and competent. However, I doubt she would prevent a Tory wipeout in a general election. Why I still favour Penny as being the best option in the current circumstances. Having a government with a 100+ majority isn't really in anyone's interests.
Tory MP: “You know who they’re starting to talk about now?”
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Nearly everyone in these pilots who went to their polling station to vote was able to show ID without difficulty, as in 2018. Out of all those who went to their polling station, the proportion who couldn’t show ID and who did not return to vote ranged from 0.03% to 0.7%.
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
"Went to the polling station and got turned away" would be a subset of the people who were prevented from voting. The other part you need is what proportion would have gone, but didn't bother because they weren't confident they'd got ID on them that they'd need to vote when they got there.
"Across all models the main reason cited for not voting was lack of time: 20% in the poll card model, 13% in the mixed model, and 20% in the photographic model. Very few stated a reason related to not having the correct ID (34 out of 1,749 who said they did not vote, or 2%), a similar proportion to 2018 pilots"
Turnout unaffected, so not all liars.
2% is a lot...
1.94% of those who didn't vote is less than 1% of people overall (local election turnout is usually 50% ish, right?), and of course we're relying on people accurately reporting (a) that they didn't vote, and (b) why.
Minister admits entire Cabinet failed to spot the mini-Budget would be a car crash. "It would be completely disingenuous to claim that on that morning when the Cabinet was presented with the mini-Budget that there was anybody sat around the table who said that it was a bad idea." https://twitter.com/TimesRadio/status/1582278064297242626
Either the didn't realise, in which case sack them, or they didn't speak up, in which case sack them. What's the point of any of these idiots being in parliament never mind the cabinet?
Maybe they did speak up but Cabinet collective responsibility prevented them from saying subsequent they disagreed with the policy?
You do know that NI has had a somewhat different political context to GB, don’t you? Several thousand dead from an ethnographic-nationalist conflict. Remember that? It’s patent nonsense to equate the GB situation with the NI one.
You are right, of course, but it's also patent nonsense to claim that extending the requirement for photo ID to the rest of the country is some kind of unprecedented assault on democracy; it's a perfectly normal thing in every other country in Europe. It may not be something worth doing, but it's hardly some great affront to civilisation.
Precisely this. So left-wingers devoting so much energy to fighting against this makes me (a) doubt their motives and (b) take their other complaints less seriously.
The astonishing thing about Labour and the left getting so up tight about Voter ID, is that in Labours own rulebook it calls for Voter ID, where there is the potential for voter fraud - see below
C. Special Measures i. Where there is evidence of widespread membership abuse, a CLP may be placed into ‘special measures’ by the NEC. Such evidence may include, but is not limited to: multiple members with the same personal contact details; multiple members paying their subscription from the same bank account; impersonation; fraudulent changes of address; and/or higher than average join rates ahead of meetings such as those to select candidates and AGMs.
ii. In a constituency deemed to be in ‘special measures’ the Party will request additional information from all applicants directly. All new applicants will be asked to supply at least two additional forms of identification as proof of name and address.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to be PM.
Tories best chance of turning this round is Sunak as PM - keep Hunt as Chancellor - keep Wallace where he is - Mordaunt FS.
How to make this happen and what to do with Truss? Would she demand a cabinet position to save some face as a condition of resigning?
The thing that LP wants is for Truss to stay PM - therefore the Tories must not do this.
You have the right top three but need to rotate them. Mordaunt as PM, Sunak as Chancellor, Hunt as FS.
Why would Hunt accept that? He’s already been FS.
My logic is this: - Keep Hunt CotE. He didn't have much support at the MP round of voting a few months ago. He's calmed the markets so keep things stable! - Rishi lost out to members. Can't go back to CotE as Hunt is there now so make him FS. - Penny PM. She's got the most charisma of the three. She's going to be the one who needs to save the Tory MPs at the next election.
You do know that NI has had a somewhat different political context to GB, don’t you? Several thousand dead from an ethnographic-nationalist conflict. Remember that? It’s patent nonsense to equate the GB situation with the NI one.
You are right, of course, but it's also patent nonsense to claim that extending the requirement for photo ID to the rest of the country is some kind of unprecedented assault on democracy; it's a perfectly normal thing in every other country in Europe. It may not be something worth doing, but it's hardly some great affront to civilisation.
Something doesn’t have to be a great affront to civilisation to be worth opposing.
Most European countries have ID cards. We don’t in the UK. That’s something many Conservatives, many with a libertarian bent, are proud of. Yet suddenly they all do a 180 for this issue. Could that possibly be to do with how we know such a system disproportionately discourages some groups from voting?
I must admit I was thinking exactly the same thing. I am opposed to ID cards in principle and see no reason to break that principle for an issue that all those who actually have anything to do with elections claim is a minute issue which does not affect outcomes.
There are aspects of the whole system I am concerned about. The proliferation of postal voting is one - and the associated issues of heads of households dictating votes - but even there I am not clear there is a problem sufficient to threaten the validity of the vote and I don't think that is something ID cards will do anything to prevent.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
The Electoral Commission didn't think so, but certainly there were a few high profile cases of left-wing activists performatively "being denied their right to vote" for the cameras and newspapers.
From there they say just taking your voting card in may be enough
Any ID requirement should ensure accessibility for all voters
Alternatively, it could involve allowing voters to use their poll card – on the current model or a different model – as the primary or secondary route to proving identity, depending on the level of security required.
There's no technical reason AFAIK why a photo can't be added to the registration database at the registration stage and then printed on the polling card.
Congratulations - you've just added a few £0million for something we don't need.
If we need an ID card for voting issue national ID cards. If we don't need a national ID card then we don't need voter Id when voting.
I think the political history of this crisis really needs to focus on (and begin with) the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The tories reacted by ditching sensible and pursuing various incarnations of fantasy and nutty in the belief they could get away with it and take the voters with them, ever since.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
They got drunk on power.
This time, there really is no money left.
Yes, this crisis is all Labour's fault. LoL
Margaret Beckett’s fault, to be specific.
The trail of damage that she has caused puts her up there with…well, you can imagine.
It was Margaret's fault - one of the things the left wing always had was a leadership candidate.
The problem for Labour was the expected winner - Yvette Cooper was beyond useless during the campaign and that and the £3 voting membership completely screwed things up. Heck, I paid my £3 and voted for Liz Kendall because the other options were so woeful.
Beckett can’t escape the blame for putting Corbyn into the ballot, even if others had done it before! Brexit, Johnson, even Trump, may not have happened otherwise!! Beckett is truly the butterfly of political history…
That is unfair on Beckett. Corbyn's momentum to a clear victory in the 2015 Leadership was generated by Harman's decision as Acting Leader to get the Opposition to abstain on Osborne's 2015 Welfare proposals. That caused outrage throughout the party , but Corbyn was the only contender outside the Shadow Cabinet and ,therefore, able to oppose the proposals. Had Burnham and Cooper stepped down during the election period, I am sure that they too would have shared Corbyn's opposition. As it was , Corbyn alone got credit for fighting Osborne's plans. Harman made a moronic decision and fully deserves to be pilloried.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to be PM.
Tories best chance of turning this round is Sunak as PM - keep Hunt as Chancellor - keep Wallace where he is - Mordaunt FS.
How to make this happen and what to do with Truss? Would she demand a cabinet position to save some face as a condition of resigning?
The thing that LP wants is for Truss to stay PM - therefore the Tories must not do this.
You have the right top three but need to rotate them. Mordaunt as PM, Sunak as Chancellor, Hunt as FS.
Why would Hunt accept that? He’s already been FS.
My logic is this: - Keep Hunt CotE. He didn't have much support at the MP round of voting a few months ago. He's calmed the markets so keep things stable! - Rishi lost out to members. Can't go back to CotE as Hunt is there now so make him FS. - Penny PM. She's got the most charisma of the three. She's going to be the one who needs to save the Tory MPs at the next election.
I see the logic in this. But this isn’t about logic. It’s about power, it’s about what different factions within the Conservative Party can get.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
I don't buy the idea that personation is an NI only problem. People have gone to lengths to commit fraud in this country at elections which is why the independent Electoral Commission recommended that NIs rules get implemented nationwide.
Can personisation be a problem in the UK system? Yes, definitely, we know that. NI has proved that.
Do people want to commit electoral fraud in GB? Yes, definitely, multiple trials in courts of law and convictions have proven that.
Is there a method to implement voter ID that cuts fraud but doesn't disenfranchise people? Yes, it's worked for 20 years now.
What's good for the NI goose is good for the British gander too.
We know personation isn't a problem at GB elections. We also know that voter ID does disenfranchise people. You are trying to argue from first principles things that have been demonstrated to be false in reality. Why?
No, we don't. You wish that were true but that doesn't make it so.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Nearly everyone in these pilots who went to their polling station to vote was able to show ID without difficulty, as in 2018. Out of all those who went to their polling station, the proportion who couldn’t show ID and who did not return to vote ranged from 0.03% to 0.7%.
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
"Went to the polling station and got turned away" would be a subset of the people who were prevented from voting. The other part you need is what proportion would have gone, but didn't bother because they weren't confident they'd got ID on them that they'd need to vote when they got there.
"Across all models the main reason cited for not voting was lack of time: 20% in the poll card model, 13% in the mixed model, and 20% in the photographic model. Very few stated a reason related to not having the correct ID (34 out of 1,749 who said they did not vote, or 2%), a similar proportion to 2018 pilots"
Turnout unaffected, so not all liars.
2% is 2%. 2% were disenfranchised. I want turnout to be as high as possible.
That's 2% of those who didn't vote? Am I right? So less than 1% of the electorate? A bit of support could help there.
Since lack of time was the bigger issue - what about moving to weekend voting?
This is the sort of everyday hate and oppression that will be made permanent if Russia is allowed to keep its illegal annexations.
The concept of tolerance is a modern one. And one where the Western world has moved away from the much of the rest of the world to the point of a Singularity. Some other cultures simply do not understand us. Or want to.
To Sire Thomas Moore, a society that tolerated other than The True Faith, gay people etc etc was not merely bizarre/inconceivable. It was actively evil. And required purging with fire. And he was the liberal philosopher of his time...
And yet a mostly modern Enlightenment culture has been adopted by nations from Argentina to Japan. Russian culture is barbarism.
It depends.
I was told the following by a South Korean. Due to the long history of American troops in South Korea, there are a fair number of half American half Korean kids. A number have African American soldiers for parents. They have to be excused from national service/treated differently. Because the death/injury rate of such individuals, from "hazing" by their fellow conscripts was getting OTT.
That arrangement was abandoned in 2011. Democracies, even those with a very long history of ethnocentrism, tend to be more amenable to change. And note that South Korea hasn't been a democracy for very much longer than has Ukraine.
Ben Wallace has hastily cancelled an early afternoon appearance before the Commons defence committee for an urgent trip to Washington DC, prompting speculation as to the purpose of the visit.
James Heappey... suggested that Wallace would be having “the sort of conversations” that had to take place face to face.
What’s the common view as to what this is? The Belarus issue?
One of the notable things about this conflict is that Western governments have been fairly open about what they know and about what they will, or won't, do in response.
A face to face conversation implies something where you want to make extra effort to keep the discussion secret and/or you have to make absolutely sure that the two people having the discussion fully understand each other. So that seems quite significant.
Bearing in mind also that Wallace was in Brussels for the regulate NATO meeting just last week, with all the other NATO defence ministers, and it suggests a sudden and severe development.
In short, I fear that Leon might be right about something.
Or, it could be for the purpose of a dressing down for RAF pilots training the Chinese.
I think the pilot issue is also true for other countries - Canada, Australia?.
There are a lot of South Africans and Ukrainians working in the PLAAF due to strong political and technical links. The JL-10/15 uses Ukrainian engines.
The added complication is the UAE. They are the correct sort of tyrannical despots so the British and French governments like it when ex service personnel work there. However the JL-10/15 drivers go to Chyna for type conversion which they don't like.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Nearly everyone in these pilots who went to their polling station to vote was able to show ID without difficulty, as in 2018. Out of all those who went to their polling station, the proportion who couldn’t show ID and who did not return to vote ranged from 0.03% to 0.7%.
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
"Went to the polling station and got turned away" would be a subset of the people who were prevented from voting. The other part you need is what proportion would have gone, but didn't bother because they weren't confident they'd got ID on them that they'd need to vote when they got there.
"Across all models the main reason cited for not voting was lack of time: 20% in the poll card model, 13% in the mixed model, and 20% in the photographic model. Very few stated a reason related to not having the correct ID (34 out of 1,749 who said they did not vote, or 2%), a similar proportion to 2018 pilots"
Turnout unaffected, so not all liars.
2% is a lot...
1.94% of those who didn't vote is less than 1% of people overall (local election turnout is usually 50% ish, right?), and of course we're relying on people accurately reporting (a) that they didn't vote, and (b) why.
That's still a lot to be disfranchizing to solve a security problem that doesn't really seem to exist, no?
We're relying on people accurately reporting but that could underestimate as well as overestimate. (We're also presumably on people responding to the survey which could massively skew it since "decline government ID cards" isn't too far from "decline government surveys")
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
Nearly everyone in these pilots who went to their polling station to vote was able to show ID without difficulty, as in 2018. Out of all those who went to their polling station, the proportion who couldn’t show ID and who did not return to vote ranged from 0.03% to 0.7%.
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
"Went to the polling station and got turned away" would be a subset of the people who were prevented from voting. The other part you need is what proportion would have gone, but didn't bother because they weren't confident they'd got ID on them that they'd need to vote when they got there.
"Across all models the main reason cited for not voting was lack of time: 20% in the poll card model, 13% in the mixed model, and 20% in the photographic model. Very few stated a reason related to not having the correct ID (34 out of 1,749 who said they did not vote, or 2%), a similar proportion to 2018 pilots"
Turnout unaffected, so not all liars.
2% is 2%. 2% were disenfranchised. I want turnout to be as high as possible.
That's 2% of those who didn't vote? Am I right? So less than 1% of the electorate? A bit of support could help there.
Since lack of time was the bigger issue - what about moving to weekend voting?
I am all for weekend voting.
Fraud is uncommon in GB voting. We should be vigilant about cases, but our focus should not be on stopping people voting, it should be on increasing our poor levels of turnout.
The surprised pikachu face everybody is making about this reminded me of this Twitter video from earlier in the year. JL-10 crew bangs out into a bamboo grove with a Chinese stude clutching a shattered fetlock and mystery ginger gwailo instructor who didn't want to be filmed.
National ID cards would be an answer to a range of problems .
The difference being that you are legally required to have one. The issue with the new voter ID rules is that some people don’t have passports or driving licenses .
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
Which have universal ID cards.
Tony Blair introduced photo ID in Northern Ireland, with photo ID available for elections for those who lacked alternatives. He also abolished head of household registration there.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
NI had a problem with personation but GB doesn't. Why put barriers in the way of voting, which we know will deter the poor from exercising their rights, and create additional costs for taxpayers to solve a problem that doesn't exist? More spending, more restrictions, more big brother surveillance - an odd policy choice for a self proclaimed libertarian.
What barriers? Issuing a free photo ID as part of the electoral registration process for those who need it? Do you really see "the poor" as too thick to be able to cope with that?
They rolled it out in test areas and significant numbers of people were prevented from voting. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you.
The Electoral Commission didn't think so, but certainly there were a few high profile cases of left-wing activists performatively "being denied their right to vote" for the cameras and newspapers.
It helps in these conversations to know which body is which.
The Electoral Commission is the independent, non-partisan body that runs elections and is tasked with ensuring their security and their openness to all. It has independently recommended photo ID, on the proviso that ID is freely available to all, as is implemented in NI.
The Electoral Reform Society is a partisan lobby group ran by and for those who dislike our electoral system and want it to be changed to a form of Proportional Representation.
I take the Electoral Commissions judgement on this matter more seriously than the ERS.
You do know that NI has had a somewhat different political context to GB, don’t you? Several thousand dead from an ethnographic-nationalist conflict. Remember that? It’s patent nonsense to equate the GB situation with the NI one.
You are right, of course, but it's also patent nonsense to claim that extending the requirement for photo ID to the rest of the country is some kind of unprecedented assault on democracy; it's a perfectly normal thing in every other country in Europe. It may not be something worth doing, but it's hardly some great affront to civilisation.
Precisely this. So left-wingers devoting so much energy to fighting against this makes me (a) doubt their motives and (b) take their other complaints less seriously.
Ironic
Not really. I support the change, but I wouldn't be fussed if it weren't introduced - provided the reason for not introducing it is valid (and nobody has yet come up with such a reason - "our voters are too stupid to get free ID" is not a valid reason).
Actually plenty of people can't easily get a free ID - the homeless, vulnerable elderly people, people with substance abuse or mental health problems, people with poor English, people working 100 hour weeks for whom this is a long way down their list of priorities. These people should all be able to vote, and already face significant barriers to exercising that right. Many will be Tory voters BTW.
"Party members alone should elect the leader" - they're on a power trip.
I have no problem with that if they're prepared to wait until they're in opposition, so the rest of the country gets to tell them what it thinks of their choice before it's imposed on us.
Comments
https://twitter.com/alert5/status/1517887588299796480
I thought Iraq 2 was a good idea.
Saddam Hussein was a vile monster and we were right to intervene to try to make things better. As we were with removing the Taliban.
That things didn't work out great is hindsight. Not everything you try works out great, but for evil to flourish all it requires is for good not to try.
Especially when all recent voter fraud has been connected to postal voting and guess what method of voting doesn't require photographic evidence under the new regime.
The Tories have destroyed public services , destroyed the relationship between the UK and the EU , have peddled nothing but division .
They deserve to be destroyed at the next GE .
I tend to test proposed changes by assuming the proposed system had always been in place, and if it had, whould there be any significant drive to change it? Pretty clearly in this case the answer is no.
I suspect the Dasmascene conversion is because you hope that you might lose less seats under a PR system than you are going to under FPTP.
It also doesn't affect those that are on minimum wage income and prevent certain occupations ever increasing beyond that floor.
A Welsh council will only use its Welsh language name from now on - and campaigners are urging others to follow suit.
https://twitter.com/NationCymru/status/1582263798890889217
What does it remind me of?
Slightly serious question: does the language obligation extend to actually doing things in both Welsh and English?
(*)
We have minimal voter fraud in GB (and those cases we do have are unaffected by at-polling-station ID verification).
We do have widespread identity theft used to order e.g. mobile phones and then steal parcels.
So we *should* have ID to collect a parcel. But ID for voting has no meaningful benefit and some risk of voter suppression.
So don't waste Parliamentary time on this (at best) non-issue.
With the schisms in the party a unity figure would have to be either (i) a politician of such ability and reputation that people would bury their differences in support of them, or (ii) somebody so weak and bland that everyone could project onto them what they wish to see.
There's no-one who fits (i) as far as I can see. And if you go for a (ii) what will happen is either they'll define themselves one way or another in office, in which case bang goes the unity, or it'll turn out they truly are weak and bland, in which case that's another poor choice for PM to join the last 3.
If its good enough for NI, why is it not good enough for GB? The changes being made aren't novel, they're expanding to GB that which Blair introduced twenty years ago already.
Cameron wasn't able to convince Brussels that we would leave without it. Because he didn't believe we would. He read the British people very badly.
"they deserve to be destroyed".
Mote. Beam.
1) there is a unnecessary admin cost in issuing voter cards
2) the hassle of getting a voter card will stop some groups from voting
3) postal vote ignores the whole issue (and is where the only issues have been found)
So you've created an additional cost, reduced voting numbers and not solved the issue.
Tory MP: “You know who they’re starting to talk about now?”
Me: “Who?”
Tory MP: “Theresa May.”
Me: “You’re taking the p@“*?”
Tory MP: “No. She’s competent. She’s boring. She’ll calm things down.”
https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1582324631129665538
Almost every democracy in the world, including parts of the UK, already requires voter ID. Making the rules Blair introduced consistent across the UK now that they've been shown to work there doesn't seem like a problem.
/ more Boris Johnson is top choice of members to replace Liz Truss if she resigns. Then Ben Wallace
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1582325639344193536
As reported in a fairly full survey:
Of 47 nations surveyed in Europe—a place where, on other matters, American progressives often look to with envy—all but one country requires a government-issued photo voter ID to vote. The exception is the U.K., and even there voter IDs are mandatory in Northern Ireland for all elections and in parts of England for local elections.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/06/01/in-europe-voter-id-is-the-norm/
It's very similar to problems I'm hearing regarding right to work checks - it's very difficult for firms to confirm people without passports can work in the UK.
Now if you were suggesting a national ID card that would then be used to validate voter ID I would be far happier because that would solve a whole set of problems and add a secondary benefit - but hey that wouldn't solve a non existent problem.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/our-views-and-research/our-research/voter-identification-pilots/may-2019-voter-identification-pilot-schemes/impact-voters-experience
it's not zero. They note:
Some groups of people may find it harder than others to show ID, particularly photo ID. This includes people with accessibility challenges as well as other less frequent voters who did not attempt to vote on 2 May but are more likely to do so at a UK general election.
(*) If they aren't, they should be.
Can personisation be a problem in the UK system? Yes, definitely, we know that. NI has proved that.
Do people want to commit electoral fraud in GB? Yes, definitely, multiple trials in courts of law and convictions have proven that.
Is there a method to implement voter ID that cuts fraud but doesn't disenfranchise people? Yes, it's worked for 20 years now.
What's good for the NI goose is good for the British gander too.
Would suit me well - I'm on at 110/1
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/mitchell-starc-calls-for-short-run-penalty-to-tackle-non-striker-straying-out-of-crease-1340464
All roads lead back to Truss in the blame game.
Tory MPs are delusional if they think she can stay in post .
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/819404/2019_Voter_ID_Pilots_Evaluation.pdf
"Reasons for not voting"
"Across all models the main reason cited for not voting was lack of time: 20% in the poll card model, 13% in the mixed model, and 20% in the photographic model. Very few stated a reason related to not having the correct ID (34 out of 1,749 who said they did not vote, or 2%), a similar proportion to 2018 pilots"
Turnout unaffected, so not all liars.
Most European countries have ID cards. We don’t in the UK. That’s something many Conservatives, many with a libertarian bent, are proud of. Yet suddenly they all do a 180 for this issue. Could that possibly be to do with how we know such a system disproportionately discourages some groups from voting?
Mayday! Mayday!
Now you're complaining that the government is implementing the recommendation of the Electoral Commission.
Which is it?
It's May's day
Agree it sounds important. Something to do with protecting Ua against Putin's latest attacks on power stations (reportedly 30% attacked in the last week), or something on nuclear policy (a coordinated warning?) - which is genuinely a UKUSA question within NATO, or intelligence related?
AFAIK there are not really any military support options where UK adds a significant extra practical capability to the USA, other than making it international.
Are there any capabilities where UK involvement could give cover to break into a new category of support? Tanks, ATACMS, Tomahawk even?
...a Scotsman flaps his wings in the Strangers' Bar...
Typically the upper rate thresholds are also frozen. The only people who benefit in your scenario are people who earn below the frozen threshold (who benefit from the cut but don’t get hit by the drag)
Any ID requirement should ensure accessibility for all voters
Alternatively, it could involve allowing voters to use their poll card – on the current model or a different model – as the primary or secondary route to proving identity, depending on the level of security required.
And also solves the issue of giving the members a say in the next leadership election as it can be done at leisure leading up to that general election
C. Special Measures
i. Where there is evidence of widespread
membership abuse, a CLP may be placed
into ‘special measures’ by the NEC. Such
evidence may include, but is not limited to:
multiple members with the same personal
contact details; multiple members paying
their subscription from the same bank
account; impersonation; fraudulent
changes of address; and/or higher than
average join rates ahead of meetings such
as those to select candidates and AGMs.
ii. In a constituency deemed to be in ‘special
measures’ the Party will request additional
information from all applicants directly. All
new applicants will be asked to supply at
least two additional forms of identification
as proof of name and address.
- Keep Hunt CotE. He didn't have much support at the MP round of voting a few months ago. He's calmed the markets so keep things stable!
- Rishi lost out to members. Can't go back to CotE as Hunt is there now so make him FS.
- Penny PM. She's got the most charisma of the three. She's going to be the one who needs to save the Tory MPs at the next election.
There are aspects of the whole system I am concerned about. The proliferation of postal voting is one - and the associated issues of heads of households dictating votes - but even there I am not clear there is a problem sufficient to threaten the validity of the vote and I don't think that is something ID cards will do anything to prevent.
If we need an ID card for voting issue national ID cards. If we don't need a national ID card then we don't need voter Id when voting.
Since lack of time was the bigger issue - what about moving to weekend voting?
Democracies, even those with a very long history of ethnocentrism, tend to be more amenable to change.
And note that South Korea hasn't been a democracy for very much longer than has Ukraine.
The added complication is the UAE. They are the correct sort of tyrannical despots so the British and French governments like it when ex service personnel work there. However the JL-10/15 drivers go to Chyna for type conversion which they don't like.
We're relying on people accurately reporting but that could underestimate as well as overestimate. (We're also presumably on people responding to the survey which could massively skew it since "decline government ID cards" isn't too far from "decline government surveys")
Fraud is uncommon in GB voting. We should be vigilant about cases, but our focus should not be on stopping people voting, it should be on increasing our poor levels of turnout.
The difference being that you are legally required to have one. The issue with the new voter ID rules is that some people don’t have passports or driving licenses .
The Electoral Commission is the independent, non-partisan body that runs elections and is tasked with ensuring their security and their openness to all. It has independently recommended photo ID, on the proviso that ID is freely available to all, as is implemented in NI.
The Electoral Reform Society is a partisan lobby group ran by and for those who dislike our electoral system and want it to be changed to a form of Proportional Representation.
I take the Electoral Commissions judgement on this matter more seriously than the ERS.
NEW THREAD
They probably won't like what they're told.