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You never forget your first time – politicalbetting.com
You never forget your first time – politicalbetting.com
As a callow and innocent teenager I will alway remember April the 9th 1992 with a lot of fondness for it was the first general election I followed with a keen interest and actually stayed up all night to see the results come in.
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Well done to the teams putting it together each time.
2010 was the first election I really paid a lot of attention to. I'd finished university and was in a temporary job where there was essentially nothing to do, so I had a lot of free time. Something then caused me to stumble onto PB.
Partygate - Trussonomics have done the same now. The tories will be out of power for another generation.
So, yes do take the next GE for granted.
That might be reasonable and it's what you want to be the case, but in what way does our system not confer on them the authority to change the fundamentals?
If they have it in their manifesto they could argue voters did specifically give them authority. Even if it wasn't in there, parliament is perfectly able to make changes, including fundamental ones, which are not in a manifesto.
There is no requirement for a referendum to make such a change. Whether it would be a good idea to do that due to it changing the fundamental aspects of the system is a different question entirely.
Unless there's a statute saying they cannot change certain things without going through different processes I don't understand the argument that they cannot, only that they shouldn't.
I'd not be against a formal rule that changing the voting system requires more than a GE win, though the details would depend. But I don't understand the argument they they have not been given authority to govern through an election if they want to, but only on some issues.
The Gallup poll on the eve of the election gave the tories a narrow lead and Martin Brunson on ITV News that night famously stated, 'I just wonder if tomorrow a lot of people are going to be wrong about the result.'
Sheffield certainly didn't help.
Starmer is no Kinnock.
Sorry to hear that. Antibiotics helping me a tad.
Not the most inspiring introduction to politics.
Good times!
Happy Easter PB
I was five, so I'm guessing he bought it for himself not me (I had Chuckie Egg), but I used to try to play it
I always wanted the Conservatives to win, and I found the best way to do that was to play as Labour
https://www.spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2009/ZX-Spectrum/General_Election
A very pleasant day - Mrs Stodge and I will be enjoying our Easter Sunday lunch presently. I can assure those who seem to need it the Sun will still shine, the drink will taste the same and days like this will still seem like paradise even if Starmer is Prime Minister and there is a Labour Government.
As for 1992, I’ve recounted this on here before but I knew the Conservatives would win on the Monday evening. I was canvassing a road in a Tory constituency I’d walked down a couple of weeks earlier.
I’d spoken to a few people on my previous visit - they were almost all 1987 Conservatives but were wavering between voting Liberal Democrat and abstaining. By the Monday before the election they were back in the Tory fold. It’s an experience I heard from other LD activists at the time.
The other thing was the turnout - my recollection of mid to late evening was the busiest I ever saw a polling station in my political activist life. It was also clear a lot of those who were coming out were Conservatives.
I’d also argue expecting history and especially political history to repeat so symmetrically is the epitome of naivety.
In later elections I acted as his driver and I have to say he was quite the most charming politician you could want to know
In Bangor we toured a council estate and the occupants came out in their droves to support him and many posters were in windows as we toured the constituency
My last active campaign was as David Jones driver in 2010 when we heard Brown's bigoted woman comment live on our car radio and looked at each other in stunned silence at first then collapsed laughing at the spectacular own goal
The various representation of the people acts just said “we will use the old system but allow more people to vote”.
That is totally fine. It’s why the boundary changes are also fine as is ID.
A fundamental change in the system - to PR - especially where so many people gleefully claim it will screw one side - without authority doesn’t create a stable political system because it introduces the suspicion of partisan bias in setting the fundamental rules of the game
ISTR a game called “Great Britain Limited” or something similar for the BBC Micro in the late ‘80s. A good early lesson in why governments need to get the bad news out of the way early in the election cycle.
Starmer has probably realised the way to win is to convince the electorate the Labour Party he leads is a non-socialist party of the centre or centre left. Talking tough on law and order is part of it.
https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1644850905462845440
In particular over the last 50 years or so there has been a shift from the concept untrammelled Parliamentary Sovereignty to a view that Parliamentary sovereignty (small s) is derived from the fact that they are the elected representatives of the people. I’d date the back to Hailsham’s “elective dictatorship” speech although I’m sure he wasn’t the first to raise the issue although he did popularise it.
(I recently bought an old dumb computer so I can still play Civ3 and Pharaoh
Would it be possible for a political party to change the electoral system without a referendum?
Yes.
Would it be wise?
No, it would not.
Now, there are nuances here. If the Conservative Party won a General Election with the manifesto promise to introduce PR (and then did so), then that would be very different to a situation where it was a prize offered up in coalition negotiations.
Something can be legal without being legitimate
It's become a bit pointless seeing the exit poll near-immediately after polls close, staying up for many hours through the night and then ultimately realising the result is pretty much what the exit poll was.
Where's the drama in that?!
One of my other favourite Speccy games was a Battle Of Britain game called Their Finest Hour, designed by "veteran board wargamer, Nicholas Palmer, author of the definitive The Comprehensive Guide To Board Wargaming"
Partly because it coloured all our experiences of 1992. But also- if the polls had been more blue-tinged through 1990, would Maggie have been dumped?
If you can going to reference someone it’s only fair to tag them!
for the rest of the review - 96% overall!!
Not cheering now are we Nicola !!!!!!!!!
There was some consolation ripping the Tories apart for the next five years. Something they have arguably yet to fully recover from.
It was rich in Cypriot politics, too, and it was commonplace to be asked the candidate's views on Greek-Turkish rivalries (and wise to check the name of the voter before knocking, to give a suitably diplomatic response). Voters of Greek descent were better-rganised, and although we tried to get backing from both communities, I remember a Greek-English voters saying angrily, "Where are the Turkish comrades?"
I was deputed, age 16, to go and knock up a list of voters late on polling day. Most were simply away, and one couple rewarded me by jumping up and literally running down the road to vote, but the last one answered angrily, "You're the 4th one to remind me, but I voted first thing, your teller must have missed me. The next caller is going to get my fist down his throat." I reported back to the insanely glamorous ward organiser (OK, I was 16 and you know what it's like), who said furiously, "He's a fucking liar! Go back and ask him again!" I wanted to impress her, but ...
Given that Starmer has yet to enthuse, the potential comparison is obvious. On the other hand, Major just had to avoid being Thatcher and Kinnock actively repelled many voters, whereas Starmer doesn’t really repel and Sunak has to overcome Brexit and Johnson and Truss and a whole stack of economic discontent. On the other hand again, the system remains as ever stacked in the Tories’ favour.
SF are up five to 37% and FG are down eight to 15%. The coalition Government of FF, FG and Greens had 42% but of course no election is scheduled until 2025.
In 2015 they didn't put Labour 28 short of a majority like they did in 1992.
My mother didn’t attend, probably on some obscure point of Irish Republican principle.
And while that's not a terrible convention to have at all, there is not much to back it up as far as I can see - and at the very least, the assertion Parliament is not permitted to do it, that 'they can't change the fundamentals without authority from the voters' does not seem to be categorically true as it was put.
Not least because 'authority from the voters' seems to be interpreted to exclude GE approval from the voters, even if a party was open about intending to do it in their manifesto.
Why is GE approval not authority from the voters, but only on this issue it seems?
It's not as complicated as being made out in my eyes - its the classic British "Can they do? Yes Should they do it? No".
My first election when I was actually in the UK was 97 and my friends and I were in our student house getting pissed in the garden and throwing dogs abuse at Glenda Jackson as she drove round the neighbourhood thanking people for voting for her - we were probably one of few student houses in the UK who weren’t overjoyed. But we still struggled on bravely with our bbq and drinking.
I was in student digs in South Woodford, and I limped up to the polling station in Woodford with a good friend. I could only walk slowly, and on the way we sung:
"Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Major
If You Think the election's won?
We Are The Boys Who Will Stop Your Little Game
We Are The Boys Who Will Make You Think Again
'Cause Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Major
If you think the election's done?"
Happy memories.
I too remember campaigning against Rossi, back in the late 80s. Eventually he succumbed to Barbara Roche, who won’t ever be the subject of a statue in Crouch End.
But there is also clearly a spectrum here.
While I disagree with the Conservatives proposals on voter ID, I do not believe there needs to be a referendum for their implementation. (I would note, however, that the Conservatives 2019 manifesto makes no mention that I can see of the change - https://www.conservatives.com/our-plan/conservative-party-manifesto-2019)
Likewise, implementing PR without a referendum and without a manifesto commitment of the winning party would be illegitimate.
Would it be illegitimate if there was a manifesto commitment? I think that would depend on the size of the electoral victory. Changing the voting system after securing a narrow majority with 35% of the vote, is very different to changing it when you got 48% of the vote and a 180 seat majority.
There was no election - a la the EU referendum - on "Shall we continue to use First Past the Post for our General Elections"
Today - a bit of time in the garden, a bit out on the bike, a home made carbonara, and then a bit of slightly nerdy campaigning via a carefully written complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority.
Of course, not everyone who votes for a party supports every part of its manifesto, if they even knew what was in it, so arguments over 'mandate' never cease. What if a referendum has no minimum threshold limit and low turnout means less than 50% of voters back it for instance?
No perfect answer. A good old British parliamentary compromise fudge might be the best option.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/utah-social-media-parental-consent-law-b2307401.html
In England you'd have to change the voting system for local elections first before anyone would vote for it at a GE. and that'll not happen without a specific proposal either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsey_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1960s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_de_Lolme
Only Holyrood can do that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLrwV_gIq3U
But if you think it’s productive to have an argument about “cannot” vs “should not” then go knock yourself out
for the rest of the review - 96% overall!!
That's a nice memory - thank you! I'd forgotten that review. It took a little while for John the programmer to adjust to historical simulation (in an early draft he proposed that raiding German aircraft could pick up fuel from dumps lying around Britain), but once we got on the same wavelength it went well, and I really enjoyed designing half a dozen German strategies that the computer could randomly choose from, making the game quite replayable. The interaction between radar and squadrons was crucial - one German strategy was to knock out the radar network, which would make most raids appear on the screen too late for easy interception.
A few years later, a big company (Lucasarts?) produced a new computer game with the same name. I wrote claiming infringement of copyright, hoping for a modest rakeoff, and had a threatening letter from their lawyers, saying that if I did anything at all to question their right to the name they would sue me for massive damages. In retrospect it was almost certainly a bluff, but I didn't feel especially confident or especially convinced that I was really entitled to anything, so I surrendered.
In 1992 I wanted to buy blue balloons to fly out the car window to demonstrate my support for Major. I was scared of Kinnock.
I wasn't taken in by Blair. I ran the mock elections at my school in 1997, and the Tories won - legitimately, I might add.
My first election was 2001. I was extremely depressed the day after and went home from university with my tail between my legs.
I was convinced Blair was invincible.
I think the fundamental difference with ID is that you already need to be on the electorate register to vote. So the requirement for ID is simply a request to prove something that should already be the case.
The correct way to address the issue, is for social media companies to be held accountable for unsuitable material on their services, which requires a careful look at legislation known as “Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act”, a Federal law.
We should try to avoid the appearance of partisan bias, but let’s be realistic. These past acts were usually partisan. They tended to benefit one or more party over others. The last one I listed was the reform of the House of Lords, where most of the hereditary peers were expelled, who were overwhelmingly Conservative, for example. (That bill also introduced AV for by-elections to the Lords.)
There are arguments for and against the use of referendums, but they are a constitutional novelty in the UK, for any purpose.
But our understanding of the constitution has evolved - power is now commonly understood as deriving from the electorate rather than some divine right (except for @HYUFD )
The better parallel is the Glorious Revolution - in that situation the crown accepted that the source of power had shifted and (unlike in the War of the Three Kingdoms) didn’t try to resist that shift. What you are trying to do is resist the shift of sovereign authority from Parliament to the electorate
Macron could not be clearer - and the even clearer parts were removed by Politico on the request of the Élysée. In his view, Taiwan is not Europe‘s problem, and Europe should not become „vassals“ of the United States. This brutally undermines his credibility as leader in Europe
https://twitter.com/LianaFix/status/1645038192796614656?s=20
https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-china-america-pressure-interview/
I'd need to see following the locals but I doubt that it'll actually make a difference in the overall results in any specific election.
You have now backtracked to making a case that, in the future, certain changes in the electoral system should require a referendum. One can try to make that case. What you would like to be the case is, of course, quite distinct from what is the case.