I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
Also you will have to convince a lot of people to commit a crime for which when they are caught for getting one extra vote they will end up in prison. Not likely is it.
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
It's one thing to get a little for oneself. Quite another to collect whole sacksful for the restaurant trade.
Depends. If it's on private land then yes ofc. But if it is growing on the common then why not?
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
What about using postal voting to corral your base's voters and cut out the polling station bit. I don't doubt this is happening - telling voters to register for a postal vote and then going round to collect the envelopes.
Yep. That is now illegal. You are not allowed to harvest postal votes anymore. A Tory activist in Guildford who did this and then actually changed a vote went to prison.
If the Tories were genuine about securing election integrity why didn’t they focus on postal voting?
Ah yes, a key Tory demographic extensively uses postal voting.
But who benefits most from Dodgy postal votes? It doesn't follow that the party who benefits most from postal votes benefits most from DPVs.
You're confusing who benefits from dodgy votes (rarely anyone).
If rarely anyone benefitted from dodgy votes, there would be no reason to object to bringing GB in line with NI.
I don't follow. The objection is that it makes voting a bit more difficult, and won't have any effect on dodgy votes which are extremely rare in person in polling stations.
Your idiotic suggestion that the people who object (see below) are objecting because they think they are currently benefiting from personation in polling stations is laughable, but typical of the shitty "arguments" that supporters of this change make.
Nope. Labour and the Lib Dems are objecting because they think the Tories will benefit from the change (presumably because their voters are proportionally more likely to be too stupid to be able to identify themselves).
I (and OGH in the header) think that's mistaken.
I won't respond to your trolling, but my view FWIW is that it's a transparent but probably rather ineffective attempt at suppression of younger (and therefore less documented plus more left-wing) voters. As OGH suggests it may do some collateral damage to the very elderly, mostly Tory, vote, so the overall effect may simply be to make British democracy a bit less representative all round.
The younger are less documented?
I agree with OGH. If the Tories have done this for suppression reasons to gain an advantage I think they have shot themselves in the foot.
That we don't have to identify ourselves at the ballot seems odd to me - I may be naive in at least entertaining the thought that the government actually saw a problem that needed fixing. The acceptable I.D. is far too narrow though - a credit card or bank statement or utility bill should have sufficed. They should clamp down on postal voting next.
The Electoral Commission told them that there was a problem that needed fixing, so I'm not sure why this is "naive".
I'm not sure about bank statements or utility bills, they don't come with photos and the latter at least isn't very secure. We needed to add "Minnie" to our water bill account so that she had some utility bill in her name for something and there was no check on the validity of it worthy of the name.
Strong agree on postal voting.
The electoral commission said that there was a problem that some voters had the *perception* that voting could be compromised, but that there was no evidence that personation was an actual problem in polling stations.
I wonder who is trying to give people that false perception?
Oh, indeed, but we've gone into at some length possible reasons for the lack of evidence.
But as to who: fundamentally, does it matter? Are you going to tell the voters that they are wrong to be concerned? Telling voters they are wrong doesn't usually work out well for politicians.
Mr. Boy, imposing national ID cards on everyone, especially given the atrocious database that Labour tried to attach to their last horrendous effort, is completely unnecessary.
Indeed a national id card is acceptable to most providing
It does not have to be carried and produced on demand of some over officious bod because he says so
It just confirms your ID and no other information is tied to it such as tax or medical records.
Hell I am one of the more "Governement keep your nose out" people who posts here and I would nod along and think yes nothing wrong with that. Its just something useful to me for voting, opening an account etc.
What would be on it then? Just your name and a photo? That seems a bit bare.
The flag man, don't forget the flag. Could even be two, one for the design and one for the hologram, just like the wonderful GHICs.
Oh no. Don't mind it being linked to my tax and medical records but no flags please. I won't carry that. Go to jail first.
So you dont mind sharing those sensitive records with the "Home Office forecasts envisaged that "265 government departments and as many as 48,000 accredited private sector organisations" would have had access to the database"
I was joking really. Although it's true this aspect doesn't instinctively bother me as much as I know it does many people. I find much of the concern to be irrational, precious, paranoid. But don't get me wrong. I don't mean we shouldn't be careful. It's not as if I'd just be happy with anything. I'd have a proper think about any proposal, cost v benefits, the scope, the controls, and take a view accordingly.
There were, essentially, no controls.
Every single data security expert said the system as designed was stupid.
It would have been an epic, epic problem when GDPR came in, for example. It would have meant the whole system would either have to be shut down, or GDPR not be implemented.
Incidentally, I do client data security as part of my day job. If I designed a system that did the above and implemented it, I would be legally liable. In a big way.
Are you an EU hater or something?
I'm not arguing for a system from ages ago that wasn't implemented. I'm just saying if something was proposed now I'd take a look and decide whether I liked it or not. As opposed to being flat out opposed on principle.
Each time a national ID card scheme has been proposed, similar farces have been proposed.
The one that got to implementation had this farce in the specification. When challenged, the then government refused to remove it.
In my view, face eating leopards who have show an established, ongoing, propensity to eat faces, will probably try and eat your face. A hefty cage is recommended.
It's perfectly possible to build in sufficient controls, I'd have thought. Aren't there any examples in other countries where they've managed to do a decent job of it? But, look, I'm not Captain Keen on a National ID Card. I quite fancy the idea but I'm not too bothered either way. It probably makes sense, we'll probably do it at some point, but it's not really my idea of a priority.
Unsurprisingly Rowan Williams is reading the Bible, I don't know what I expected.
He has the Beano hidden within it.
Long ago when I ran a bookshop, a certain MP (still in the House) used to come in and buy soft porn books. He had no idea that I was an active political opponent, but being a good liberal, I would never have used it against him - people can read what they like!
That's getting awfully close to an Act of War, no?
Wagner no doubt will claim they are a private company.
It's a fairly clever and very Mafia-like strategy. Seems unlikely they will actually carry out the hit, but that's no matter. It will have a chilling effect on European politicians who might have been planning to speak out against Russia or Wagner. They will watch their words to make sure they're not at the top of the hit list.
Wagner doing this is convenient because they are a private company and already have a highly mob-style approach to life.
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
A child at my daughters school is Ukrainian (refugee) and doing various charitable things to help the cause back home. She setup a funding page for a young lady who had lost her leg in battle - to buy a funky electronic limb. When the page was forwarded onto various people, there was a reaction of "that's gross" from some.
As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem. But the sight of a 20 something young woman with a leg missing was OTT.
Even though some of the negative comments were from women, I still say this sounds sexist. Thoughts?
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
It's one thing to get a little for oneself. Quite another to collect whole sacksful for the restaurant trade.
Depends. If it's on private land then yes ofc. But if it is growing on the common then why not?
Because the incentive is to take as much as possible and this can mean the plant dies out. Tragedy of the Commons. As with fishing.
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
I love the concept that the reason political parties don't organise personation on an industrial scale is because their activists are more effectively employed on polling day.
Presumably these people have never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, Episode 16.
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
Also you will have to convince a lot of people to commit a crime for which when they are caught for getting one extra vote they will end up in prison. Not likely is it.
Don't get me wrong not claiming its happening. I am merely pointing out that it could be done relatively easily by acquiring the non voter list from previous elections. Get 10 people together visit every polling station in the constituency. Circa 50 polling stations then that is 5000 votes
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
What about using postal voting to corral your base's voters and cut out the polling station bit. I don't doubt this is happening - telling voters to register for a postal vote and then going round to collect the envelopes.
Yep. That is now illegal. You are not allowed to harvest postal votes anymore. A Tory activist in Guildford who did this and then actually changed a vote went to prison.
Makeas you wonder how many got away with changing the vote! How did they know he'd done it?
Mr. Boy, imposing national ID cards on everyone, especially given the atrocious database that Labour tried to attach to their last horrendous effort, is completely unnecessary.
Indeed a national id card is acceptable to most providing
It does not have to be carried and produced on demand of some over officious bod because he says so
It just confirms your ID and no other information is tied to it such as tax or medical records.
Hell I am one of the more "Governement keep your nose out" people who posts here and I would nod along and think yes nothing wrong with that. Its just something useful to me for voting, opening an account etc.
What would be on it then? Just your name and a photo? That seems a bit bare.
The flag man, don't forget the flag. Could even be two, one for the design and one for the hologram, just like the wonderful GHICs.
Oh no. Don't mind it being linked to my tax and medical records but no flags please. I won't carry that. Go to jail first.
So you dont mind sharing those sensitive records with the "Home Office forecasts envisaged that "265 government departments and as many as 48,000 accredited private sector organisations" would have had access to the database"
I was joking really. Although it's true this aspect doesn't instinctively bother me as much as I know it does many people. I find much of the concern to be irrational, precious, paranoid. But don't get me wrong. I don't mean we shouldn't be careful. It's not as if I'd just be happy with anything. I'd have a proper think about any proposal, cost v benefits, the scope, the controls, and take a view accordingly.
There were, essentially, no controls.
Every single data security expert said the system as designed was stupid.
It would have been an epic, epic problem when GDPR came in, for example. It would have meant the whole system would either have to be shut down, or GDPR not be implemented.
Incidentally, I do client data security as part of my day job. If I designed a system that did the above and implemented it, I would be legally liable. In a big way.
Are you an EU hater or something?
I'm not arguing for a system from ages ago that wasn't implemented. I'm just saying if something was proposed now I'd take a look and decide whether I liked it or not. As opposed to being flat out opposed on principle.
Each time a national ID card scheme has been proposed, similar farces have been proposed.
The one that got to implementation had this farce in the specification. When challenged, the then government refused to remove it.
In my view, face eating leopards who have show an established, ongoing, propensity to eat faces, will probably try and eat your face. A hefty cage is recommended.
It's perfectly possible to build in sufficient controls, I'd have thought. Aren't there any examples in other countries where they've managed to do a decent job of it? But, look, I'm not Captain Keen on a National ID Card. I quite fancy the idea but I'm not too bothered either way. It probably makes sense, we'll probably do it at some point, but it's not really my idea of a priority.
I am mildly in favour of a National ID card.
Providing people abusing the confidential data are publicly impaled to encourage the others, of course.
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
What about using postal voting to corral your base's voters and cut out the polling station bit. I don't doubt this is happening - telling voters to register for a postal vote and then going round to collect the envelopes.
Yep. That is now illegal. You are not allowed to harvest postal votes anymore. A Tory activist in Guildford who did this and then actually changed a vote went to prison.
Makeas you wonder how many got away with changing the vote! How did they know he'd done it?
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
It's one thing to get a little for oneself. Quite another to collect whole sacksful for the restaurant trade.
Depends. If it's on private land then yes ofc. But if it is growing on the common then why not?
Because the incentive is to take as much as possible and this can mean the plant dies out. Tragedy of the Commons. As with fishing.
Yes no I get that but it is what it is. If it is on common land then it is available for the commoners.
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
I love the concept that the reason political parties don't organise personation on an industrial scale is because their activists are more effectively employed on polling day.
Presumably these people have never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, Episode 16.
I should think that's a pretty safe assumption tbf.
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
It's one thing to get a little for oneself. Quite another to collect whole sacksful for the restaurant trade.
The issue is when everyone gets a little for themselves...
I know Ramsons really isn't going to disappear through someone taking a few leaves - indeed it is a bit of a pain in the backside in some places - but it was more the principle that grates a bit. If something is encouraged on TV it inevitably spreads and not in a good way.
The Victorians used to forage for plants, too. How many went extinct?
PS Mushrooms are slightly different as it is the fruiting body that is collected and not the whole organism, although truffle digging can be an issue.
Big race of today, 3m Hurdle. And I’m quietly confident here of a third winner this week. Gold Tweet is in my notebook with winner winner written around it, that’s got to mean something.
Still out there on the course somewhere 🤦♀️
The BBC had Dashel Drasher as a long price choice. Should have picked that each way.
Yes. Backed it e/w this morning. Made up a bit for a total blank yesterday.
Mr. Boy, imposing national ID cards on everyone, especially given the atrocious database that Labour tried to attach to their last horrendous effort, is completely unnecessary.
Indeed a national id card is acceptable to most providing
It does not have to be carried and produced on demand of some over officious bod because he says so
It just confirms your ID and no other information is tied to it such as tax or medical records.
Hell I am one of the more "Governement keep your nose out" people who posts here and I would nod along and think yes nothing wrong with that. Its just something useful to me for voting, opening an account etc.
What would be on it then? Just your name and a photo? That seems a bit bare.
The flag man, don't forget the flag. Could even be two, one for the design and one for the hologram, just like the wonderful GHICs.
Oh no. Don't mind it being linked to my tax and medical records but no flags please. I won't carry that. Go to jail first.
So you dont mind sharing those sensitive records with the "Home Office forecasts envisaged that "265 government departments and as many as 48,000 accredited private sector organisations" would have had access to the database"
I was joking really. Although it's true this aspect doesn't instinctively bother me as much as I know it does many people. I find much of the concern to be irrational, precious, paranoid. But don't get me wrong. I don't mean we shouldn't be careful. It's not as if I'd just be happy with anything. I'd have a proper think about any proposal, cost v benefits, the scope, the controls, and take a view accordingly.
There were, essentially, no controls.
Every single data security expert said the system as designed was stupid.
It would have been an epic, epic problem when GDPR came in, for example. It would have meant the whole system would either have to be shut down, or GDPR not be implemented.
Incidentally, I do client data security as part of my day job. If I designed a system that did the above and implemented it, I would be legally liable. In a big way.
Are you an EU hater or something?
I'm not arguing for a system from ages ago that wasn't implemented. I'm just saying if something was proposed now I'd take a look and decide whether I liked it or not. As opposed to being flat out opposed on principle.
Each time a national ID card scheme has been proposed, similar farces have been proposed.
The one that got to implementation had this farce in the specification. When challenged, the then government refused to remove it.
In my view, face eating leopards who have show an established, ongoing, propensity to eat faces, will probably try and eat your face. A hefty cage is recommended.
It's perfectly possible to build in sufficient controls, I'd have thought. Aren't there any examples in other countries where they've managed to do a decent job of it? But, look, I'm not Captain Keen on a National ID Card. I quite fancy the idea but I'm not too bothered either way. It probably makes sense, we'll probably do it at some point, but it's not really my idea of a priority.
Why not just do it with the suggested data, DOB, photo, address,name, id card number. Even I wouldn't object to that. It would keep it cheap. Doesn't really matter if it was stolen that much and no surveillance state aspect.
Why do you think there is a need for more data as this would function perfectly well as an ID card.
The reason people object everytime is the home office wants to turn it into a 1984 style big brotheresque panopticon
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
It's one thing to get a little for oneself. Quite another to collect whole sacksful for the restaurant trade.
Depends. If it's on private land then yes ofc. But if it is growing on the common then why not?
Saw someone foraging for daffodils on the verge of a leafy north London street a few years ago. No doubt they ended up on a market stall at £1 a bunch.
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
It's one thing to get a little for oneself. Quite another to collect whole sacksful for the restaurant trade.
Depends. If it's on private land then yes ofc. But if it is growing on the common then why not?
Saw someone foraging for daffodils on the verge of a leafy north London street a few years ago. No doubt they ended up on a market stall at £1 a bunch.
Good enterprise.
It still amazes me that people buy those anaemic bunches of roses at traffic lights.
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Ramsons is abundant and very resilient.
I prefer foraging for mushrooms as the stakes are higher, if you make a mistake
A friend of mine had a near-death experience with a deadly webcap. A kidney transplant later...
A good poisoner should always know what is lethal and close to hand in the wild.
Like Atropa belladonna, my photo and all-time favourite.
That's getting awfully close to an Act of War, no?
Wagner no doubt will claim they are a private company.
It's a fairly clever and very Mafia-like strategy. Seems unlikely they will actually carry out the hit, but that's no matter. It will have a chilling effect on European politicians who might have been planning to speak out against Russia or Wagner. They will watch their words to make sure they're not at the top of the hit list.
Wagner doing this is convenient because they are a private company and already have a highly mob-style approach to life.
A Mafia bounty hit on Yevgeny Prigozhin would be an interesting operation.
Especially if actually carried out by a state body.
Then just say "it was Putin". Maximum Moscow chaos.
Mr. Boy, imposing national ID cards on everyone, especially given the atrocious database that Labour tried to attach to their last horrendous effort, is completely unnecessary.
Indeed a national id card is acceptable to most providing
It does not have to be carried and produced on demand of some over officious bod because he says so
It just confirms your ID and no other information is tied to it such as tax or medical records.
Hell I am one of the more "Governement keep your nose out" people who posts here and I would nod along and think yes nothing wrong with that. Its just something useful to me for voting, opening an account etc.
What would be on it then? Just your name and a photo? That seems a bit bare.
The flag man, don't forget the flag. Could even be two, one for the design and one for the hologram, just like the wonderful GHICs.
Oh no. Don't mind it being linked to my tax and medical records but no flags please. I won't carry that. Go to jail first.
So you dont mind sharing those sensitive records with the "Home Office forecasts envisaged that "265 government departments and as many as 48,000 accredited private sector organisations" would have had access to the database"
I was joking really. Although it's true this aspect doesn't instinctively bother me as much as I know it does many people. I find much of the concern to be irrational, precious, paranoid. But don't get me wrong. I don't mean we shouldn't be careful. It's not as if I'd just be happy with anything. I'd have a proper think about any proposal, cost v benefits, the scope, the controls, and take a view accordingly.
There were, essentially, no controls.
Every single data security expert said the system as designed was stupid.
It would have been an epic, epic problem when GDPR came in, for example. It would have meant the whole system would either have to be shut down, or GDPR not be implemented.
Incidentally, I do client data security as part of my day job. If I designed a system that did the above and implemented it, I would be legally liable. In a big way.
Are you an EU hater or something?
I'm not arguing for a system from ages ago that wasn't implemented. I'm just saying if something was proposed now I'd take a look and decide whether I liked it or not. As opposed to being flat out opposed on principle.
Each time a national ID card scheme has been proposed, similar farces have been proposed.
The one that got to implementation had this farce in the specification. When challenged, the then government refused to remove it.
In my view, face eating leopards who have show an established, ongoing, propensity to eat faces, will probably try and eat your face. A hefty cage is recommended.
It's perfectly possible to build in sufficient controls, I'd have thought. Aren't there any examples in other countries where they've managed to do a decent job of it? But, look, I'm not Captain Keen on a National ID Card. I quite fancy the idea but I'm not too bothered either way. It probably makes sense, we'll probably do it at some point, but it's not really my idea of a priority.
I am mildly in favour of a National ID card.
Providing people abusing the confidential data are publicly impaled to encourage the others, of course.
I do rather like the idea of a non-driving driving licence. Although everyone over the age of 17 is already eligible for a provisional licence even if they never intend to lear to drive, are they not?
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Ramsons is abundant and very resilient.
I prefer foraging for mushrooms as the stakes are higher, if you make a mistake
A friend of mine had a near-death experience with a deadly webcap. A kidney transplant later...
A good poisoner should always know what is lethal and close to hand in the wild.
Like Atropa belladonna, my photo and all-time favourite.
Or grows in the garden of someone that will likely be a major suspect
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Ramsons is abundant and very resilient.
I prefer foraging for mushrooms as the stakes are higher, if you make a mistake
A friend of mine had a near-death experience with a deadly webcap. A kidney transplant later...
A good poisoner should always know what is lethal and close to hand in the wild.
Like Atropa belladonna, my photo and all-time favourite.
We had Hemlock water-dropwort in the garden for a while. I thought that was a plant too far to be honest, although at least it wasn't in a parsnip bed.
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
I assume that's because it counts as "rail journeys" but Tube journeys don't?
An interesting question is whether/ow much tube journeys have decreased, or usage patterns altered. I'd guess the central core of the Central Line is less busy - but that's just a guess.
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Ramsons is abundant and very resilient.
I prefer foraging for mushrooms as the stakes are higher, if you make a mistake
A friend of mine had a near-death experience with a deadly webcap. A kidney transplant later...
A good poisoner should always know what is lethal and close to hand in the wild.
Like Atropa belladonna, my photo and all-time favourite.
We had Hemlock water-dropwort in the garden for a while. I thought that was a plant too far to be honest, although at least it wasn't in a parsnip bed.
I had henbane in the garden of my previous house. Magnificent.
Big race of today, 3m Hurdle. And I’m quietly confident here of a third winner this week. Gold Tweet is in my notebook with winner winner written around it, that’s got to mean something.
Still out there on the course somewhere 🤦♀️
The BBC had Dashel Drasher as a long price choice. Should have picked that each way.
Yes. Backed it e/w this morning. Made up a bit for a total blank yesterday.
Demoted to third. Too much drashing into Teahupoo. 😟
Big race of today, 3m Hurdle. And I’m quietly confident here of a third winner this week. Gold Tweet is in my notebook with winner winner written around it, that’s got to mean something.
Still out there on the course somewhere 🤦♀️
The BBC had Dashel Drasher as a long price choice. Should have picked that each way.
Yes. Backed it e/w this morning. Made up a bit for a total blank yesterday.
Demoted to third. Too much drashing into Teahupoo. 😟
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
I love the concept that the reason political parties don't organise personation on an industrial scale is because their activists are more effectively employed on polling day.
Presumably these people have never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, Episode 16.
I should think that's a pretty safe assumption tbf.
You were meant to ask why I mentioned it, not just sneer!
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
It's one thing to get a little for oneself. Quite another to collect whole sacksful for the restaurant trade.
Depends. If it's on private land then yes ofc. But if it is growing on the common then why not?
Saw someone foraging for daffodils on the verge of a leafy north London street a few years ago. No doubt they ended up on a market stall at £1 a bunch.
Good enterprise.
It still amazes me that people buy those anaemic bunches of roses at traffic lights.
"If he gives you roses for no reason ... there's a reason."
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
I love the concept that the reason political parties don't organise personation on an industrial scale is because their activists are more effectively employed on polling day.
Presumably these people have never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, Episode 16.
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
A child at my daughters school is Ukrainian (refugee) and doing various charitable things to help the cause back home. She setup a funding page for a young lady who had lost her leg in battle - to buy a funky electronic limb. When the page was forwarded onto various people, there was a reaction of "that's gross" from some.
As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem. But the sight of a 20 something young woman with a leg missing was OTT.
Even though some of the negative comments were from women, I still say this sounds sexist. Thoughts?
Yes. Horrible. Sexist and rather inhuman imo.
As ever, says more about the people expressing the views.
Build excellent infrastructure and it will get used. Must be a lesson there somewhere.
A few years back, someone (can't remember who) said that all the rail line reopenings - in Wales and Scotland (none in England at the time) saw far higher passenger figures than predicted. As an example, the Borders Railway carried ~20% of its predicted passengers in a month when it opened. Some of that might have been the appeal of the new and shiny, but later figures also show it was still far busier than expected.
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
It's one thing to get a little for oneself. Quite another to collect whole sacksful for the restaurant trade.
The issue is when everyone gets a little for themselves...
I know Ramsons really isn't going to disappear through someone taking a few leaves - indeed it is a bit of a pain in the backside in some places - but it was more the principle that grates a bit. If something is encouraged on TV it inevitably spreads and not in a good way.
The Victorians used to forage for plants, too. How many went extinct?
PS Mushrooms are slightly different as it is the fruiting body that is collected and not the whole organism, although truffle digging can be an issue.
Thanks, and yes of course you are right. Same with seaweeds and shells on the sea shore thanks to Philip Gosse.
Ramsons is *very* abundant locally where I live, down in a fairly shaded wooded river valley, but no plant is that common!
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
It's one thing to get a little for oneself. Quite another to collect whole sacksful for the restaurant trade.
The issue is when everyone gets a little for themselves...
I know Ramsons really isn't going to disappear through someone taking a few leaves - indeed it is a bit of a pain in the backside in some places - but it was more the principle that grates a bit. If something is encouraged on TV it inevitably spreads and not in a good way.
The Victorians used to forage for plants, too. How many went extinct?
PS Mushrooms are slightly different as it is the fruiting body that is collected and not the whole organism, although truffle digging can be an issue.
Foraging can get over the top sometimes. I remembered this story from last year:
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
What was the plant? Are you allowed to say?
It was only Sweet woodruff, nothing rare, but it only grows in a few woods in the district and not in great quantity.
They could probably have had a leaf or two but it was mainly about the principle to be honest.
Build excellent infrastructure and it will get used. Must be a lesson there somewhere.
A few years back, someone (can't remember who) said that all the rail line reopenings - in Wales and Scotland (none in England at the time) saw far higher passenger figures than predicted. As an example, the Borders Railway carried ~20% of its predicted passengers in a month when it opened. Some of that might have been the appeal of the new and shiny, but later figures also show it was still far busier than expected.
Bathgate Railway leccy too - not a touristy destination either, a very workaday one - very useful commuter line. That made me realise that such predictions weren't reliable.
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
I love the concept that the reason political parties don't organise personation on an industrial scale is because their activists are more effectively employed on polling day.
Presumably these people have never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, Episode 16.
Why do you mention it?
I'm glad you asked that question.
Because that's the episode in which (Faith as) Buffy says "Because it's Wrong!"
Mr. Boy, imposing national ID cards on everyone, especially given the atrocious database that Labour tried to attach to their last horrendous effort, is completely unnecessary.
Indeed a national id card is acceptable to most providing
It does not have to be carried and produced on demand of some over officious bod because he says so
It just confirms your ID and no other information is tied to it such as tax or medical records.
Hell I am one of the more "Governement keep your nose out" people who posts here and I would nod along and think yes nothing wrong with that. Its just something useful to me for voting, opening an account etc.
What would be on it then? Just your name and a photo? That seems a bit bare.
The flag man, don't forget the flag. Could even be two, one for the design and one for the hologram, just like the wonderful GHICs.
Oh no. Don't mind it being linked to my tax and medical records but no flags please. I won't carry that. Go to jail first.
So you dont mind sharing those sensitive records with the "Home Office forecasts envisaged that "265 government departments and as many as 48,000 accredited private sector organisations" would have had access to the database"
I was joking really. Although it's true this aspect doesn't instinctively bother me as much as I know it does many people. I find much of the concern to be irrational, precious, paranoid. But don't get me wrong. I don't mean we shouldn't be careful. It's not as if I'd just be happy with anything. I'd have a proper think about any proposal, cost v benefits, the scope, the controls, and take a view accordingly.
There were, essentially, no controls.
Every single data security expert said the system as designed was stupid.
It would have been an epic, epic problem when GDPR came in, for example. It would have meant the whole system would either have to be shut down, or GDPR not be implemented.
Incidentally, I do client data security as part of my day job. If I designed a system that did the above and implemented it, I would be legally liable. In a big way.
Are you an EU hater or something?
I'm not arguing for a system from ages ago that wasn't implemented. I'm just saying if something was proposed now I'd take a look and decide whether I liked it or not. As opposed to being flat out opposed on principle.
Each time a national ID card scheme has been proposed, similar farces have been proposed.
The one that got to implementation had this farce in the specification. When challenged, the then government refused to remove it.
In my view, face eating leopards who have show an established, ongoing, propensity to eat faces, will probably try and eat your face. A hefty cage is recommended.
It's perfectly possible to build in sufficient controls, I'd have thought. Aren't there any examples in other countries where they've managed to do a decent job of it? But, look, I'm not Captain Keen on a National ID Card. I quite fancy the idea but I'm not too bothered either way. It probably makes sense, we'll probably do it at some point, but it's not really my idea of a priority.
Why not just do it with the suggested data, DOB, photo, address,name, id card number. Even I wouldn't object to that. It would keep it cheap. Doesn't really matter if it was stolen that much and no surveillance state aspect.
Why do you think there is a need for more data as this would function perfectly well as an ID card.
The reason people object everytime is the home office wants to turn it into a 1984 style big brotheresque panopticon
@kinabalu reaction to the suggested design is a pointer to the problem - "Is that it?"
Every civil servant will then add on a feature they want. Which will make life easier, honest.
Michael Howard used to say that a significant duty of every Home Sec, is to look at the pile of ideas that get bought out after terrorist incidents etc. Then say no to all of them. Because the Home Office has a pile of bat shit crazy ideas in that pile.
If the Tories were genuine about securing election integrity why didn’t they focus on postal voting?
Ah yes, a key Tory demographic extensively uses postal voting.
But who benefits most from Dodgy postal votes? It doesn't follow that the party who benefits most from postal votes benefits most from DPVs.
You're confusing who benefits from dodgy votes (rarely anyone).
If rarely anyone benefitted from dodgy votes, there would be no reason to object to bringing GB in line with NI.
I don't follow. The objection is that it makes voting a bit more difficult, and won't have any effect on dodgy votes which are extremely rare in person in polling stations.
Your idiotic suggestion that the people who object (see below) are objecting because they think they are currently benefiting from personation in polling stations is laughable, but typical of the shitty "arguments" that supporters of this change make.
Nope. Labour and the Lib Dems are objecting because they think the Tories will benefit from the change (presumably because their voters are proportionally more likely to be too stupid to be able to identify themselves).
I (and OGH in the header) think that's mistaken.
I won't respond to your trolling, but my view FWIW is that it's a transparent but probably rather ineffective attempt at suppression of younger (and therefore less documented plus more left-wing) voters. As OGH suggests it may do some collateral damage to the very elderly, mostly Tory, vote, so the overall effect may simply be to make British democracy a bit less representative all round.
The younger are less documented?
I agree with OGH. If the Tories have done this for suppression reasons to gain an advantage I think they have shot themselves in the foot.
That we don't have to identify ourselves at the ballot seems odd to me - I may be naive in at least entertaining the thought that the government actually saw a problem that needed fixing. The acceptable I.D. is far too narrow though - a credit card or bank statement or utility bill should have sufficed. They should clamp down on postal voting next.
The Electoral Commission told them that there was a problem that needed fixing, so I'm not sure why this is "naive".
I'm not sure about bank statements or utility bills, they don't come with photos and the latter at least isn't very secure. We needed to add "Minnie" to our water bill account so that she had some utility bill in her name for something and there was no check on the validity of it worthy of the name.
Strong agree on postal voting.
The electoral commission said that there was a problem that some voters had the *perception* that voting could be compromised, but that there was no evidence that personation was an actual problem in polling stations.
I wonder who is trying to give people that false perception?
Oh, indeed, but we've gone into at some length possible reasons for the lack of evidence.
But as to who: fundamentally, does it matter? Are you going to tell the voters that they are wrong to be concerned? Telling voters they are wrong doesn't usually work out well for politicians.
Well it matters if Conservative politicians create the false impression that there is a problem with personation at polling booths, and then use the resulting 'concern' as an excuse for introducing unnecessary voter suppression measures for their electoral advantage.
This is a cycle lane in Colwyn Bay. TBF there's a bit of long-focus compaction there.
There are days when I quite understand Joseph Stalin's approach to organisatlional headcount.
That is far from the worst version of a cycle lane I have seen. That one looks as if the survival rate among cyclists trying to use it could reach 50%.
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
A child at my daughters school is Ukrainian (refugee) and doing various charitable things to help the cause back home. She setup a funding page for a young lady who had lost her leg in battle - to buy a funky electronic limb. When the page was forwarded onto various people, there was a reaction of "that's gross" from some.
As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem. But the sight of a 20 something young woman with a leg missing was OTT.
Even though some of the negative comments were from women, I still say this sounds sexist. Thoughts?
Yes. Horrible. Sexist and rather inhuman imo.
As ever, says more about the people expressing the views.
Very odd, when there is at least one high profile lady with an amputation. Isn't there one married to a pop star? Or a pop star herself? Maybe wrong generation ...
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
A child at my daughters school is Ukrainian (refugee) and doing various charitable things to help the cause back home. She setup a funding page for a young lady who had lost her leg in battle - to buy a funky electronic limb. When the page was forwarded onto various people, there was a reaction of "that's gross" from some.
As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem. But the sight of a 20 something young woman with a leg missing was OTT.
Even though some of the negative comments were from women, I still say this sounds sexist. Thoughts?
Probably depends on whether "As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem" is what they said, or what came into your mind when you saw someone expressing distress at the sight of a mutilated human body. If the latter, perhaps the problem doesn't lie with the people who found it distressing.
Querying that. Mustn’t include the Tube, which is still a railway.
"Underground" surely. The Tube is the deep stuff buried down below the rest, isn't it? Lots more Underground higher up, e.g. the bit that trundles out on the surface past the RAF Museum and Polis kindergarten at Hendon.
Edity: and no idea if tyhat now includes the EL in popular parlance ...
A month ago the Sunday Mail published a story by @johncferguson saying SNP membership had dropped by up to 30,000 but we were accused by the party's press office of making it up. Turns out it was 100% accurate after all.
Note to all that wild garlic (or ramsons, if you like) is out in force at the mo. Like nettles, these leaves can be picked with guiltless abandon (but taste better and don't sting). Roughly chopped into plain rice with a little salt, it makes for an excellent, simple side dish - and the flowers that will appear next month make for a nice (tasty) garnish.
Guiltless abandon - unless on private land, or a protected wildlife site.
As it is an ancient woodland indicator, that might a significant number of the places it grows.
Not a fan of the 'foraging' business for various reasons.
Not sure what the scare quotes are for. And really - it's a very hardy and recurrent plant that grows like topsy all over the shop. It's not like you need loads.
Allium ursinum may well be locally dominant where it grows but many other things on foragers lists aren't so robust or common. Encouraging the phenomenon seems like a bad idea.
We (being the county plant recorders) have had requests from professional foragers asking 'do you know where any X grows locally' - including from someone who was allegedly making a programme with Ainsley Harriot. They wanted to find a particular plant that isn't that common locally (although it does grow in our nearest woods - a SSSI). They were told to look elsewhere, although I've no idea what they actually did in the end.
It isn't really foraging if you are harvesting for profit, either through selling to restaurants or selling courses. It is definitely not foraging if you have to ask where to find things!
Actual foragers understand the balance well though - after all, you want to be able to find it again next year. Every foraging guidebook or expert I've encountered has taken pains to stress the importance of not taking things that are rare (locally or nationally) or otherwise damaging local ecology.
Ramsons form vast carpets round me - they are extremely vigorous, hence picking with abandon. Like nettles or blackberries.
I am surprised to hear that there are so many people who forage for living - though as you say, you'd think they'd know where to look for stuff already if they did it for a living!
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
Also you will have to convince a lot of people to commit a crime for which when they are caught for getting one extra vote they will end up in prison. Not likely is it.
Don't get me wrong not claiming its happening. I am merely pointing out that it could be done relatively easily by acquiring the non voter list from previous elections. Get 10 people together visit every polling station in the constituency. Circa 50 polling stations then that is 5000 votes
And then prison. You are going to get caught on one of those attempts.
SNP today: Party members as of February 15 = 72,186
Shout out to the SNP press office, which told me - on February 21 - that the membership number "shouldn't be too far off our latest published number, which was just over 100k (103,884 members)"
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
Big race of today, 3m Hurdle. And I’m quietly confident here of a third winner this week. Gold Tweet is in my notebook with winner winner written around it, that’s got to mean something.
Still out there on the course somewhere 🤦♀️
The BBC had Dashel Drasher as a long price choice. Should have picked that each way.
Yes. Backed it e/w this morning. Made up a bit for a total blank yesterday.
Demoted to third. Too much drashing into Teahupoo. 😟
I haven't had a Lot of Joy with my bets today.
The TV experts has a good look in slomo from different angles, and said there wasn’t much in it. The biggest losers were team drasher, the difference in prize money was more than 30K
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
A child at my daughters school is Ukrainian (refugee) and doing various charitable things to help the cause back home. She setup a funding page for a young lady who had lost her leg in battle - to buy a funky electronic limb. When the page was forwarded onto various people, there was a reaction of "that's gross" from some.
As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem. But the sight of a 20 something young woman with a leg missing was OTT.
Even though some of the negative comments were from women, I still say this sounds sexist. Thoughts?
Yes. Horrible. Sexist and rather inhuman imo.
As ever, says more about the people expressing the views.
Very odd, when there is at least one high profile lady with an amputation. Isn't there one married to a pop star? Or a pop star herself? Maybe wrong generation ...
SNP today: Party members as of February 15 = 72,186
Shout out to the SNP press office, which told me - on February 21 - that the membership number "shouldn't be too far off our latest published number, which was just over 100k (103,884 members)"
If the Tories were genuine about securing election integrity why didn’t they focus on postal voting?
Ah yes, a key Tory demographic extensively uses postal voting.
But who benefits most from Dodgy postal votes? It doesn't follow that the party who benefits most from postal votes benefits most from DPVs.
You're confusing who benefits from dodgy votes (rarely anyone).
If rarely anyone benefitted from dodgy votes, there would be no reason to object to bringing GB in line with NI.
I don't follow. The objection is that it makes voting a bit more difficult, and won't have any effect on dodgy votes which are extremely rare in person in polling stations.
Your idiotic suggestion that the people who object (see below) are objecting because they think they are currently benefiting from personation in polling stations is laughable, but typical of the shitty "arguments" that supporters of this change make.
Nope. Labour and the Lib Dems are objecting because they think the Tories will benefit from the change (presumably because their voters are proportionally more likely to be too stupid to be able to identify themselves).
I (and OGH in the header) think that's mistaken.
I won't respond to your trolling, but my view FWIW is that it's a transparent but probably rather ineffective attempt at suppression of younger (and therefore less documented plus more left-wing) voters. As OGH suggests it may do some collateral damage to the very elderly, mostly Tory, vote, so the overall effect may simply be to make British democracy a bit less representative all round.
The younger are less documented?
I agree with OGH. If the Tories have done this for suppression reasons to gain an advantage I think they have shot themselves in the foot.
That we don't have to identify ourselves at the ballot seems odd to me - I may be naive in at least entertaining the thought that the government actually saw a problem that needed fixing. The acceptable I.D. is far too narrow though - a credit card or bank statement or utility bill should have sufficed. They should clamp down on postal voting next.
The Electoral Commission told them that there was a problem that needed fixing, so I'm not sure why this is "naive".
I'm not sure about bank statements or utility bills, they don't come with photos and the latter at least isn't very secure. We needed to add "Minnie" to our water bill account so that she had some utility bill in her name for something and there was no check on the validity of it worthy of the name.
Strong agree on postal voting.
The electoral commission said that there was a problem that some voters had the *perception* that voting could be compromised, but that there was no evidence that personation was an actual problem in polling stations.
I wonder who is trying to give people that false perception?
Oh, indeed, but we've gone into at some length possible reasons for the lack of evidence.
But as to who: fundamentally, does it matter? Are you going to tell the voters that they are wrong to be concerned? Telling voters they are wrong doesn't usually work out well for politicians.
Well it matters if Conservative politicians create the false impression that there is a problem with personation at polling booths, and then use the resulting 'concern' as an excuse for introducing unnecessary voter suppression measures for their electoral advantage.
But the bringing of GB in line with Northern Ireland isn't to their electoral advantage, as the header says...
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
I love the concept that the reason political parties don't organise personation on an industrial scale is because their activists are more effectively employed on polling day.
Presumably these people have never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, Episode 16.
Why do you mention it?
I'm glad you asked that question.
Because that's the episode in which (Faith as) Buffy says "Because it's Wrong!"
Good point, although I added an additional point later that you might have difficulty trying to persuade a whole group of people to commit a crime for which they will go to prison. Not impressed with myself that was an after thought though.
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
Also you will have to convince a lot of people to commit a crime for which when they are caught for getting one extra vote they will end up in prison. Not likely is it.
Don't get me wrong not claiming its happening. I am merely pointing out that it could be done relatively easily by acquiring the non voter list from previous elections. Get 10 people together visit every polling station in the constituency. Circa 50 polling stations then that is 5000 votes
And then prison. You are going to get caught on one of those attempts.
Unlikely you are going to get caught tbh, at worst its going to be "According to our list you already voted" and you walk out
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
SNP today: Party members as of February 15 = 72,186
Shout out to the SNP press office, which told me - on February 21 - that the membership number "shouldn't be too far off our latest published number, which was just over 100k (103,884 members)"
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
I love the concept that the reason political parties don't organise personation on an industrial scale is because their activists are more effectively employed on polling day.
Presumably these people have never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, Episode 16.
Hey, at least they have a reason not to do it, even if it's not the obvious one.
Querying that. Mustn’t include the Tube, which is still a railway.
"Underground" surely. The Tube is the deep stuff buried down below the rest, isn't it? Lots more Underground higher up, e.g. the bit that trundles out on the surface past the RAF Museum and Polis kindergarten at Hendon.
Edity: and no idea if tyhat now includes the EL in popular parlance ...
Oh, technically yes the District/Circle/H&C/Met aren't tube lines, but only people who are much more pedantic even than me are still fighting that battle.
Although I did read a quiz a couple of weeks ago that referred to the PurpleTrain as a "London Underground line"...
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
A child at my daughters school is Ukrainian (refugee) and doing various charitable things to help the cause back home. She setup a funding page for a young lady who had lost her leg in battle - to buy a funky electronic limb. When the page was forwarded onto various people, there was a reaction of "that's gross" from some.
As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem. But the sight of a 20 something young woman with a leg missing was OTT.
Even though some of the negative comments were from women, I still say this sounds sexist. Thoughts?
Probably depends on whether "As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem" is what they said, or what came into your mind when you saw someone expressing distress at the sight of a mutilated human body. If the latter, perhaps the problem doesn't lie with the people who found it distressing.
They actually said, in couple of cases, that it was "wrong" because it was a woman.
This wasn't expressed to me - it was to the young lady doing the charitable fund raising.
Querying that. Mustn’t include the Tube, which is still a railway.
"Underground" surely. The Tube is the deep stuff buried down below the rest, isn't it? Lots more Underground higher up, e.g. the bit that trundles out on the surface past the RAF Museum and Polis kindergarten at Hendon.
Edity: and no idea if tyhat now includes the EL in popular parlance ...
It's all referred to as Tube or Underground interchangeably. The percentage actually underground was always quite small.
The government ignored the recommendations of their own Pickles review and went for the most restricted list of acceptable ID .
Anyone trying to spin the new rules as anything but voter disenfranchisement is avoiding the facts .
The fact that postal voting is now more open to fraud than at the voting centre highlights the Tories disgraceful attempts at ensuring their voter base can easily vote without giving a fig about fraud .
The Tories in here need to just accept the reality and stop trying to hide behind the electoral commission as a means to legitimize the blatant disenfranchisement.
I am and proud to be so . Also like voter ID totally the norm here in Spain. All the faix outrage here is real boring. Nice to know that possible Tories are being checked up on for outing. The site is such an echo chamber these days no wonder it's full of natty posters!
It is a false parallel. The difference is that every Spanish citizen 14 or older is required to have a national identity card or "Documento Nacional de Identidad". No-one has any objection with requiring an identity card to vote in countries where the possession of such a card is universal. The problem with the UK's system is that some people but not others are required to jump through quite time consuming hoops in order to vote.
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
What about using postal voting to corral your base's voters and cut out the polling station bit. I don't doubt this is happening - telling voters to register for a postal vote and then going round to collect the envelopes.
Yep. That is now illegal. You are not allowed to harvest postal votes anymore. A Tory activist in Guildford who did this and then actually changed a vote went to prison.
Makeas you wonder how many got away with changing the vote! How did they know he'd done it?
Don't know. Just looked it up and it doesn't say, but there were 5 charges so presumably it wasn't once he did it. It says he was an ex-Councillor.
Only 5%? That is a very substantial permanent pay cut. "Good" for whom?
The national average payrise is 6%. £1655 about an additional 4% on top of the 5% headline rise for the average NHS worker, so in total a 9% rise ie more than the national average rise over the last year
The government ignored the recommendations of their own Pickles review and went for the most restricted list of acceptable ID .
Anyone trying to spin the new rules as anything but voter disenfranchisement is avoiding the facts .
The fact that postal voting is now more open to fraud than at the voting centre highlights the Tories disgraceful attempts at ensuring their voter base can easily vote without giving a fig about fraud .
The Tories in here need to just accept the reality and stop trying to hide behind the electoral commission as a means to legitimize the blatant disenfranchisement.
I am and proud to be so . Also like voter ID totally the norm here in Spain. All the faix outrage here is real boring. Nice to know that possible Tories are being checked up on for outing. The site is such an echo chamber these days no wonder it's full of natty posters!
It is a false parallel. The difference is that every Spanish citizen 14 or older is required to have a national identity card or "Documento Nacional de Identidad". No-one has any objection with requiring an identity card to vote in countries where the possession of such a card is universal. The problem with the UK's system is that some people but not others are required to jump through quite time consuming hoops in order to vote.
Took me about three minutes up until the final submission page when I tried out the process last time PB was talking about it.
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
A child at my daughters school is Ukrainian (refugee) and doing various charitable things to help the cause back home. She setup a funding page for a young lady who had lost her leg in battle - to buy a funky electronic limb. When the page was forwarded onto various people, there was a reaction of "that's gross" from some.
As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem. But the sight of a 20 something young woman with a leg missing was OTT.
Even though some of the negative comments were from women, I still say this sounds sexist. Thoughts?
Yes. Horrible. Sexist and rather inhuman imo.
As ever, says more about the people expressing the views.
Very odd, when there is at least one high profile lady with an amputation. Isn't there one married to a pop star? Or a pop star herself? Maybe wrong generation ...
There have been high profile publicity stunts forever on this one that I can remember.
It's strange what gets under the skin; I can see people who do appearance for a living or aspiration getting affected by truncated otherwise normal-looking bodies. Is there a parallel with people who feel a dislocation when they return to a community where they grew up - part of their identity - having been utterly transformed?
On a slightly-related note, this morning I ran across the story that Adrian Chiles had done a self-Bobbit in an accident at the age of 11.
I do rather like the idea of a non-driving driving licence. Although everyone over the age of 17 is already eligible for a provisional licence even if they never intend to lear to drive, are they not?
Govt website says you can't apply for a provisional unless you can read a number plate from 20 metres away, and I assume we don't want to disenfranchise the blind. Plus it costs 34 quid to apply and expires after 10 years...
SNP today: Party members as of February 15 = 72,186
Shout out to the SNP press office, which told me - on February 21 - that the membership number "shouldn't be too far off our latest published number, which was just over 100k (103,884 members)"
SNP today: Party members as of February 15 = 72,186
Shout out to the SNP press office, which told me - on February 21 - that the membership number "shouldn't be too far off our latest published number, which was just over 100k (103,884 members)"
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
Also you will have to convince a lot of people to commit a crime for which when they are caught for getting one extra vote they will end up in prison. Not likely is it.
Don't get me wrong not claiming its happening. I am merely pointing out that it could be done relatively easily by acquiring the non voter list from previous elections. Get 10 people together visit every polling station in the constituency. Circa 50 polling stations then that is 5000 votes
It is pointless. It is much, much much easier to commit postal voter fraud. Much less risk of getting caught and you can cast far more fraudulent votes. Why do the difficult thing when you can do the easy one?
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
A child at my daughters school is Ukrainian (refugee) and doing various charitable things to help the cause back home. She setup a funding page for a young lady who had lost her leg in battle - to buy a funky electronic limb. When the page was forwarded onto various people, there was a reaction of "that's gross" from some.
As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem. But the sight of a 20 something young woman with a leg missing was OTT.
Even though some of the negative comments were from women, I still say this sounds sexist. Thoughts?
Probably depends on whether "As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem" is what they said, or what came into your mind when you saw someone expressing distress at the sight of a mutilated human body. If the latter, perhaps the problem doesn't lie with the people who found it distressing.
They actually said, in couple of cases, that it was "wrong" because it was a woman.
This wasn't expressed to me - it was to the young lady doing the charitable fund raising.
Well in that case, I don't think there should have been any need for you to ask whether it was sexist!
But it wasn't clear from what you posted in the first place whether they had said that, or whether it was your interpretation. I think it's pretty common for people to find it distressing to see images of a mutilated human body, for understandable reasons.
"NEW SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf just jokingly asked a group of Ukrainian women in Edinburgh “where are all the men?” There was polite and awkward laughter before they explained that many of their partners had stayed in Ukraine to fight in the war."
I think it's probably just an embarrassing gaffe. But it's funny.
No that is how stupid he is , just what you would expect from an absolute donkey.
It’s beginning to go his way though isn’t it? 😦
I don't think so , Mr Continuity and they just announced they have misplaced 50,000 members as well as the £600K. More like he is heading for the toilet.
I do rather like the idea of a non-driving driving licence. Although everyone over the age of 17 is already eligible for a provisional licence even if they never intend to lear to drive, are they not?
Govt website says you can't apply for a provisional unless you can read a number plate from 20 metres away, and I assume we don't want to disenfranchise the blind. Plus it costs 34 quid to apply and expires after 10 years...
Fair enough. It still would be a reasonable starting point for a non-driving driving licence, which needn't cost so much. I assume the 10 year validity is to do with the age of the photo.
SNP today: Party members as of February 15 = 72,186
Shout out to the SNP press office, which told me - on February 21 - that the membership number "shouldn't be too far off our latest published number, which was just over 100k (103,884 members)"
I really can’t get worked up about the voter ID requirements. Plenty of other countries manage it. I don’t really have a problem with someone demonstrating they are who they say they are when they go to vote. It really seems wholly sensible in a lot of ways.
I would say that I’m not sure it’s curing any problem we had, in that I don’t think rampant impersonation was a huge issue in our elections. As others have said, the postal voting system is more open to abuse.
How do we know personation was a problem, if we were taking no steps t identify or prevent it?
If turnout reduces significantly under the new rules requiring voter ID, clearly personation was a problem. If it barely changes, clearly introducing it doesn't create hardship. Win-win.
Your last paragraph, with all due respect, is nonsense. If turnout goes down it will be because large numbers of valid voters who lack the necessary photo ID are turned away. They will absolutely dwarf any personation that is deterred. I find it genuinely chilling that people can be so blasé about disenfranchising voters. People died so we could have the right to vote FFS.
1) Prove it.
2) If you don't have a valid photo ID, you aren't a "valid voter". Therefore, no "valid voters" will be prevented from voting as a result of the new rules. QED
3) Splitting hairs a bit, but did people really die for our right to vote, per se? If all parties in (say) WWII were democracies, would we not have still defended ourselves from outside invasion? Or is the (implicit) argument that a democratic Germany wouldn't have tried?
1) There are millions of people who lack the valid ID. There are not millions of people turning up and voting in place of other people. On the basis of past evidence there are not even thousands.
2) so if the government decided women couldn't vote it would be fine because only men would be valid voters and they could still vote?
3) Ever heard of the Peterloo Massacre?
1) Prove it. You cannot prove a lack of personation on the basis that a system that isn't designed to catch it, isn't catching it.
2) Er... what? I mean, it wouldn't be fine, obviously (unless women voluntarily gave up suffrage en masse, for some reason?) But no, the problem wouldn't be "valid voters" not being allowed to vote. The two aren't remotely comparable.
3) Only in passing. But OK, I stand corrected. Fifteen people died for my right to vote.
1) Surely the people who want to make a very controversial change to how people vote should be able to produce some evidence that personation is a problem. They've been in power long enough. The fact that they haven't even attempted to shows that they themselves know that it is bullshit, and they are a bunch of liars.
"very controversial" only because you say so. I say it's not remotely controversial, because this is standard practice elsewhere in democratic countries, equalises GB with NI and anyway official Labour policy for ages was compulsory ID cards so what are they even complaining about.
However, this is not the point. The point is that it is currently impossible to demonstrate personation, because the system simply doesn't check for it. So how could anyone produce evidence for (or against) it?
Surely if personation at polling stations were an issue we would have loads of stories of people turning up to vote to be told "sorry, according to our records you've already voted"? That doesn't happen, as far as I'm aware.
Nah, if you turn up lateish you can see which addresses aren't crossed out and just tell the officials you live at the ones that are still left, and hope. Or you find out which of your neighbours never vote and it's even more straightforward. Lots of other ways. Also, currently if it does happen, the officials just assume they made a mistake in the crossing out - do we keep track of how often this happens?
If personation were happening on any kind of scale it would be with the connivance of one of the political parties, at least at the local level. But it just doesn't make sense. The risks of getting caught are too great, because unlike postal voting fraud it has to be done in plain sight and it involves a lot of people. Just on a risk/reward basis it isn't worth it - the number of votes you could shift are marginal and the cost if you got caught is huge. And with the effort involved you could probably find more legitimate voters to vote for you.
Plus, if it were happening at any scale there would be complainants. You wouldn’t turn up at your polling station, get told “sorry you’ve already voted” and leave it there. And if you’ve register then you’re going to have some intent to vote, so there would be cases of that.
You can buy lists of who voted, someone hasn't voted last couple of elections, probably not going to vote in this one so fairly safe. I went on voter strike in 2010...for all I know I have voted in every election since
But if you don’t care enough to check, or to come off the register, then does it matter? There won’t be many in your position.
So it doesn't matter if someone gets a second vote is that what you are saying? Yes there is a lot in my position as well....about 30% don't vote in a general election. Most will still be registered
yes but see my other post. You can't keep walking into a polling station and voting under a different name. You will get spotted very easily.
a team of activists with a list each going once into a polling centre, then moving onto the next?
Pagan you clearly don't know about polling day operations. Every activist is knocking up, delivering get out the vote leaflets, running a committee room, telling, delivering people to the polling booth, etc, etc. There isn't enough people to do that so you move people into target wards. There is no point in doing it in a non target ward. This is far more productive than using your entire team to get a few fraudulent votes. Most wards only have one or two polling stations anyway. Telling itself is a huge operation.
Really you don't have a team of people to do this that aren't all doing something far more productive.
Also you will have to convince a lot of people to commit a crime for which when they are caught for getting one extra vote they will end up in prison. Not likely is it.
Don't get me wrong not claiming its happening. I am merely pointing out that it could be done relatively easily by acquiring the non voter list from previous elections. Get 10 people together visit every polling station in the constituency. Circa 50 polling stations then that is 5000 votes
It is pointless. It is much, much much easier to commit postal voter fraud. Much less risk of getting caught and you can cast far more fraudulent votes. Why do the difficult thing when you can do the easy one?
Sighs, yes I agree its easier to do postal votes I was just pushing back against those saying it couldn't be done and even if it was would only be a couple of votes. I showed a way to do it which could swing 5000 votes in a constituency and I really don't agree they are likely to be caught and jailed in the execution.
Comments
But as to who: fundamentally, does it matter? Are you going to tell the voters that they are wrong to be concerned? Telling voters they are wrong doesn't usually work out well for politicians.
Wagner doing this is convenient because they are a private company and already have a highly mob-style approach to life.
A child at my daughters school is Ukrainian (refugee) and doing various charitable things to help the cause back home. She setup a funding page for a young lady who had lost her leg in battle - to buy a funky electronic limb. When the page was forwarded onto various people, there was a reaction of "that's gross" from some.
As in, if it had been a man, there would have been no problem. But the sight of a 20 something young woman with a leg missing was OTT.
Even though some of the negative comments were from women, I still say this sounds sexist. Thoughts?
Presumably these people have never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, Episode 16.
Providing people abusing the confidential data are publicly impaled to encourage the others, of course.
I know Ramsons really isn't going to disappear through someone taking a few leaves - indeed it is a bit of a pain in the backside in some places - but it was more the principle that grates a bit. If something is encouraged on TV it inevitably spreads and not in a good way.
The Victorians used to forage for plants, too. How many went extinct?
PS Mushrooms are slightly different as it is the fruiting body that is collected and not the whole organism, although truffle digging can be an issue.
Had he got a Rowan-Bear with him? Quite rare and collectible. That may or may not still be my avatar.
Why do you think there is a need for more data as this would function perfectly well as an ID card.
The reason people object everytime is the home office wants to turn it into a 1984 style big brotheresque panopticon
1 in 6 rail journeys in the UK are on the Elizabeth Line.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/passengers-elizabeth-line-soar-41-per-cent-tfl-overcrowding-b1067730.html
It still amazes me that people buy those anaemic bunches of roses at traffic lights.
Like Atropa belladonna, my photo and all-time favourite.
Especially if actually carried out by a state body.
Then just say "it was Putin". Maximum Moscow chaos.
I hate TikTok.
But have an amazing remedy.
I don’t use it.
As ever, says more about the people expressing the views.
This is a cycle lane in Colwyn Bay. TBF there's a bit of long-focus compaction there.
Ramsons is *very* abundant locally where I live, down in a fairly shaded wooded river valley, but no plant is that common!
https://www.cornish-times.co.uk/news/villagers-are-setting-up-patrols-in-lostwithiel-to-protect-its-wild-garlic-from-foodies-541016
It is actually illegal to cut wild flowers/plants for commercial purposes under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981)
They could probably have had a leaf or two but it was mainly about the principle to be honest.
Because that's the episode in which (Faith as) Buffy says "Because it's Wrong!"
Every civil servant will then add on a feature they want. Which will make life easier, honest.
Michael Howard used to say that a significant duty of every Home Sec, is to look at the pile of ideas that get bought out after terrorist incidents etc. Then say no to all of them. Because the Home Office has a pile of bat shit crazy ideas in that pile.
Might be a lesson in there somewhere, too.
The French Republicans have apparently confirmed that they will not support a vote of no confidence in the government as a result of the pensions law.
That suggests that the government is safe… for now…
That is far from the worst version of a cycle lane I have seen. That one looks as if the survival rate among cyclists trying to use it could reach 50%.
Edity: and no idea if tyhat now includes the EL in popular parlance ...
https://twitter.com/craigorobertson/status/1636398921827205120?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64977269
Ramsons form vast carpets round me - they are extremely vigorous, hence picking with abandon. Like nettles or blackberries.
I am surprised to hear that there are so many people who forage for living - though as you say, you'd think they'd know where to look for stuff already if they did it for a living!
Shout out to the SNP press office, which told me - on February 21 - that the membership number "shouldn't be too far off our latest published number, which was just over 100k (103,884 members)"
https://twitter.com/chrismusson/status/1636396001635229697
Although I did read a quiz a couple of weeks ago that referred to the PurpleTrain as a "London Underground line"...
This wasn't expressed to me - it was to the young lady doing the charitable fund raising.
Nothing to see here.
It's strange what gets under the skin; I can see people who do appearance for a living or aspiration getting affected by truncated otherwise normal-looking bodies. Is there a parallel with people who feel a dislocation when they return to a community where they grew up - part of their identity - having been utterly transformed?
On a slightly-related note, this morning I ran across the story that Adrian Chiles had done a self-Bobbit in an accident at the age of 11.
But it wasn't clear from what you posted in the first place whether they had said that, or whether it was your interpretation. I think it's pretty common for people to find it distressing to see images of a mutilated human body, for understandable reasons.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/party-membership-since-indyref/
And why do you think SNP leadership has opted to obfuscate (at best) or lie (to the press) about the decline?