Mr Bell, who has worked at the Guardian for more than four decades, said the newspaper had refused to publish any more of his cartoons, although it will continue to employ him until April 2024.
Well, there was certainly a lack of funny ones... Does that count?
Nah because otherwise he’d have been sacked years ago!
(Seriously, though, this latest one - with Netenyahu as a surgeon with boxing gloves. It seems a stretch to read that as a reference to “a pound of flesh”. I suspect that the Guardian is being hyper sensitive and/or was looking for an excuse to cut costs without paying a massive redundancy payment)
My guess is their advertisers had a word, and/or staff got fed up of Bell pinning the racist label on the paper. I'd agree with you that in this instance Bell is largely innocent, except insofar as it is insensitive at best to attack any Israeli leader immediately after the Hamas attack.
Meh.
“Not proven” rather than “largely innocent” methinks
Steve Bell claims the cartoon is an homage to one of Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. Both cartoons are shown here (who knew cartoonists had their own industry paper?)
Netenyahu is claiming to be orchestrating a “surgical strike” on Hamas but his boxing mentality means that the damage can’t be restricted to the target
All I saw was the “pound of flesh” connotation. If I squint, I can see where you are coming from, but he ought to have known the main link would be to the “pound of flesh” reference and not submitted the idea.
Explain the link to Shylock for me?
I mean, he’s literally in the process of removing a pound of flesh. His own, wearing boxing gloves, and there is the “joke”. You might not have seen that but almost everyone else did.
Only those who wanted to.
No, it’s a pretty obvious link that anyone well read should have made, before deciding to not go with that image. Hence the Editor’s note. I assume he’s been sacked/not commissioned again more for his public criticism of his Editor than the content, which was just rejected.
If he was “sacked” for producing it himself I’d be the first to defend his defend his right to produce that image on his own Twitter, assuming his contract doesn’t say that the Guardian owns it.
The voting system isn't crooked, everyone starts each election with zero votes and then the voters decide. Just put forward what you believe in and convince the most voters to back you. If you can't do that, take some responsibility for your own actions.
And Labour and Lib Dems aren't interchangeable. If they were, they'd be the same party not two very different ones.
FWIW my view is that the LibDems were wrong to target the seat and even now should ease off since it's really clear they're not in a position to win and they're simply increasing the chance that the Tories will hold the seat.
But to respond to your point, after talking to hundreds of voters over the weekend, it's clear that most voters don't see the parties as different in any significant way, and the appeals for tactical voting strengthen that perception (nobody asks for tactical votes from Reform UK, do they?). That might be a mistake - after all, we can all point to policy differences - but they elude the only vaguely engaged voter. After Starmer's move to the centre, and the general perception that the LibDems (and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists, what floating voters see is three similar parties squabbling, and it annoys them. In some cases it even means they don't vote for any of us.
I'm not actually arguing against tactical voting. But it would be good if the non-Tory parties agreed on some basic principles which respect the right of every party to make an effort:
1. The party that sees itself in the best position in win should use phrases like ". The Tories are [usual criticisms]. If you want to vote tactically to get them out, lend us your vote because ...". Don't use voodoo polls or disproportionate bar charts.
2. If a party can see that they're not in a position to win, they should argue for a positive vote. "You only get the chance to say how you think the country should be run every 4-5 years. Don't waste your vote on parochial and negative tactical voting, vote positively for us because..."
You'll still see parties who both think they can win adopting the first strategy, but put like that it avoids actually pissing everyone off, including the voters who we're all trying to impress.
"(and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists"
Corbyn's policies were, in general, popular with the majority of voters. Even the majority of Tory voters are happy with the idea of renationalising lots of essential things - electricity, rail, water. Green policy is radical, that's why I support them, but the "mainstream" idea of where the centre is policy wise is dead off imho.
I don't know the Green Party in Beds, they may be an actual centrist local branch (I consider my branch here in Herts quite centrist). I know lots of Greens in Tory areas tend to be on the pragmatic / conservationist side of the general green movement, versus the more radical wings amongst younger Greens and those from the cities.
An interesting question would be which country out of China and the UK has the most CCTV cameras per head.
UK - since the Blair years, right? The UK loves CCTV - I imagine more for the belief that being watched makes people behave and a semi-Foucault idea of the Panopticon rather than the amount of useful data actually harvested.
I'm going to cynically suggest that we love CCTV because it is the cheapskating approach to the problem of crime; as with so many other things, heaven forbid we actually invest thought and resources in tackling an issue seriously.
That's true, and most politicians refuse to accept what the evidence based approach to tackling crime is (despite Blair's call on dealing with "crime and the causes of crime") which is poverty. Lifting people out of precarity is the surest solution to reducing crime.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
Dr. Foxy, people, under PR, can indeed vote for what they want. And then have no guarantee of getting it if their chosen party trades away their preferred policy in coalition negotiations.
"Stats for Lefties 🏳️⚧️ 🇵🇸 @LeftieStats 🚨 NEW: A Stroud councillor has quit Labour after Starmer said Israel has the right to withhold water and power from Gaza.
In 2021, Labour had 15 councillors in Stroud. 11 of these (73%) have since left Labour in opposition to Starmer, costing Labour the council leadership."
Starmer is making the choice that losing the left flank is either acceptable or won't happen come the GE in an attempt to appeal to the centre. That potentially sets him up well to win more seats - but will make his government unpopular. If he has already lost Labour's base of support then they will be less likely to support the Labour government, typically LD or Tory voters "lending" their vote will likely return "home" if displeased, and the waivers in the middle will only stay with Starmer for as long as they feel the Tories deserve to be punished.
I'd say that losing 11 out of 15 is the significant stat there.
Jessie Hoskin is herself a Momentum bod who joined in the Corbyn wave 8 years ago.
Whoops. The chance of these taxi companies being run by relatives of the councillors, or of kickbacks being given to the elected representatives of Birmingham, is not going to be zero.
Dr. Foxy, people, under PR, can indeed vote for what they want. And then have no guarantee of getting it if their chosen party trades away their preferred policy in coalition negotiations.
That's also the case under FPTP - it can produce coalitions. And not only that a party that doesn't get majority support in vote share nationally can get a huge majority in seats and impose its will on the whole country. Alongside that, our system allows for the removal of party leaders within parliaments - meaning that the entire direction of parties can change in government based on votes for a specific manifesto.
We have seen this with Sunak. Sunak has ditched many policies in the Tory manifesto he was elected on and suggested many policies that were nowhere to be seen within it. That he has a stonking parliamentary majority to do that with little pushback is a weakness of FPTP. In a PR / coalition system, that would be less possible as the strength of other parties by their electoral mandates would be able to withdraw their votes in such a scenario if they wished.
"Stats for Lefties 🏳️⚧️ 🇵🇸 @LeftieStats 🚨 NEW: A Stroud councillor has quit Labour after Starmer said Israel has the right to withhold water and power from Gaza.
In 2021, Labour had 15 councillors in Stroud. 11 of these (73%) have since left Labour in opposition to Starmer, costing Labour the council leadership."
Starmer is making the choice that losing the left flank is either acceptable or won't happen come the GE in an attempt to appeal to the centre. That potentially sets him up well to win more seats - but will make his government unpopular. If he has already lost Labour's base of support then they will be less likely to support the Labour government, typically LD or Tory voters "lending" their vote will likely return "home" if displeased, and the waivers in the middle will only stay with Starmer for as long as they feel the Tories deserve to be punished.
I'd say that losing 11 out of 15 is the significant stat there.
Jessie Hoskin is herself a Momentum bod who joined in the Corbyn wave 8 years ago.
Anecdotally I have seen lots of left / Corbyn Labour members saying that fighting within the party is pointless and many have joined the Greens. Is that number significant at a GE? I don't think so. It may mean that Labour and Conservatives both eventually become parties more heavily reliant on national media with hollowed out on the ground operations in the future.
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
Mr Bell, who has worked at the Guardian for more than four decades, said the newspaper had refused to publish any more of his cartoons, although it will continue to employ him until April 2024.
Well, there was certainly a lack of funny ones... Does that count?
Nah because otherwise he’d have been sacked years ago!
(Seriously, though, this latest one - with Netenyahu as a surgeon with boxing gloves. It seems a stretch to read that as a reference to “a pound of flesh”. I suspect that the Guardian is being hyper sensitive and/or was looking for an excuse to cut costs without paying a massive redundancy payment)
My guess is their advertisers had a word, and/or staff got fed up of Bell pinning the racist label on the paper. I'd agree with you that in this instance Bell is largely innocent, except insofar as it is insensitive at best to attack any Israeli leader immediately after the Hamas attack.
Meh.
“Not proven” rather than “largely innocent” methinks
Steve Bell claims the cartoon is an homage to one of Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. Both cartoons are shown here (who knew cartoonists had their own industry paper?)
Netenyahu is claiming to be orchestrating a “surgical strike” on Hamas but his boxing mentality means that the damage can’t be restricted to the target
On the Bell cartoons. They were never funny. They were always supposed to be an angry rant.
I think his problem is that, due to the modern doctrine of punching up/down, he feels unable to criticise racist speech from minority groups in his presence. Without that push back, he is getting immersed in some nasty stuff.
The woke/PC spineless wan**rs have stiffed him. This country lurches closer and closer to being China II, luckily they cannot afford the number of cameras and tame police that they can.
An interesting question would be which country out of China and the UK has the most CCTV cameras per head.
UK - since the Blair years, right? The UK loves CCTV - I imagine more for the belief that being watched makes people behave and a semi-Foucault idea of the Panopticon rather than the amount of useful data actually harvested.
Per pop seems to be USA (15 per 100) then China (14 per 100) then UK (7 per 100):
The United States has 15.28 CCTV cameras every 100 individuals, followed by China with 14.36 and the United Kingdom with 7.5. Other top 10 countries include Germany with 6.27 cameras per 100 individuals, Netherlands 5.8, Australia 4, Japan 2.72, France 2.46 and South Korea 1.99. https://aithority.com/news/top-10-countries-and-cities-by-number-of-cctv-cameras/
Mr Bell, who has worked at the Guardian for more than four decades, said the newspaper had refused to publish any more of his cartoons, although it will continue to employ him until April 2024.
Well, there was certainly a lack of funny ones... Does that count?
Nah because otherwise he’d have been sacked years ago!
(Seriously, though, this latest one - with Netenyahu as a surgeon with boxing gloves. It seems a stretch to read that as a reference to “a pound of flesh”. I suspect that the Guardian is being hyper sensitive and/or was looking for an excuse to cut costs without paying a massive redundancy payment)
My guess is their advertisers had a word, and/or staff got fed up of Bell pinning the racist label on the paper. I'd agree with you that in this instance Bell is largely innocent, except insofar as it is insensitive at best to attack any Israeli leader immediately after the Hamas attack.
Meh.
“Not proven” rather than “largely innocent” methinks
Steve Bell claims the cartoon is an homage to one of Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. Both cartoons are shown here (who knew cartoonists had their own industry paper?)
Netenyahu is claiming to be orchestrating a “surgical strike” on Hamas but his boxing mentality means that the damage can’t be restricted to the target
All I saw was the “pound of flesh” connotation. If I squint, I can see where you are coming from, but he ought to have known the main link would be to the “pound of flesh” reference and not submitted the idea.
Explain the link to Shylock for me?
I mean, he’s literally in the process of removing a pound of flesh. His own, wearing boxing gloves, and there is the “joke”. You might not have seen that but almost everyone else did.
He’s not removing his own flesh but someone else’s.
It’s a contrast between an anticipated heavy handed response (boxing gloves) and the claimed targeted strike (scalpel) at Hamas in Gaza
There have been so many anti-Semitic phrases and stories in Western history (Shylock is known to modern audiences from Shakespeare) that you are essentially saying any criticism is off limits.
If there has been any reference to weight - scales for example - then you would have a point t, but I don’t see it on this occasion
(To be clear I find Bell unfunny and unpleasant. He sails very close to the wind and has frequently crossed the line so I have little sympathy for him)
Shakespeare’s meaning with “pound of flesh” was selfishly not caring about the damage done in order to achieve your aim. He is, in the cartoon, cutting into himself (Israel) where Gaza sits. The boxing gloves mean he will do all sorts of damage to “Gaza” as he does.
I can’t know his intent, and won’t comment on or assume it, but that’s what everyone else saw: the link between the assumed access damage and him being Shylock. He ought to have seen that, or certainly twigged once the editor flagged it.
Note, I am not someone who called for him to be sacked or disciplined for the cartoon. And I never would as it would make me a hypocrite vs other cases. All I saying is that the controversy was predictable.
An interesting question would be which country out of China and the UK has the most CCTV cameras per head.
UK - since the Blair years, right? The UK loves CCTV - I imagine more for the belief that being watched makes people behave and a semi-Foucault idea of the Panopticon rather than the amount of useful data actually harvested.
I'm going to cynically suggest that we love CCTV because it is the cheapskating approach to the problem of crime; as with so many other things, heaven forbid we actually invest thought and resources in tackling an issue seriously.
I agree 100%. It's the cheap and nasty approach to crime, which revels in not doing anything about root causes.
The voting system isn't crooked, everyone starts each election with zero votes and then the voters decide. Just put forward what you believe in and convince the most voters to back you. If you can't do that, take some responsibility for your own actions.
And Labour and Lib Dems aren't interchangeable. If they were, they'd be the same party not two very different ones.
FWIW my view is that the LibDems were wrong to target the seat and even now should ease off since it's really clear they're not in a position to win and they're simply increasing the chance that the Tories will hold the seat.
But to respond to your point, after talking to hundreds of voters over the weekend, it's clear that most voters don't see the parties as different in any significant way, and the appeals for tactical voting strengthen that perception (nobody asks for tactical votes from Reform UK, do they?). That might be a mistake - after all, we can all point to policy differences - but they elude the only vaguely engaged voter. After Starmer's move to the centre, and the general perception that the LibDems (and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists, what floating voters see is three similar parties squabbling, and it annoys them. In some cases it even means they don't vote for any of us.
I'm not actually arguing against tactical voting. But it would be good if the non-Tory parties agreed on some basic principles which respect the right of every party to make an effort:
1. The party that sees itself in the best position in win should use phrases like ". The Tories are [usual criticisms]. If you want to vote tactically to get them out, lend us your vote because ...". Don't use voodoo polls or disproportionate bar charts.
2. If a party can see that they're not in a position to win, they should argue for a positive vote. "You only get the chance to say how you think the country should be run every 4-5 years. Don't waste your vote on parochial and negative tactical voting, vote positively for us because..."
You'll still see parties who both think they can win adopting the first strategy, but put like that it avoids actually pissing everyone off, including the voters who we're all trying to impress.
"(and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists"
Corbyn's policies were, in general, popular with the majority of voters. Even the majority of Tory voters are happy with the idea of renationalising lots of essential things - electricity, rail, water. Green policy is radical, that's why I support them, but the "mainstream" idea of where the centre is policy wise is dead off imho.
I don't know the Green Party in Beds, they may be an actual centrist local branch (I consider my branch here in Herts quite centrist). I know lots of Greens in Tory areas tend to be on the pragmatic / conservationist side of the general green movement, versus the more radical wings amongst younger Greens and those from the cities.
Greens are a broad church. Yes, a fair few watermelon Momentum entrists (and legacy eco-socialists too) but plenty of Greens hold a range of views. Most parties have strains of conservationism/environmentalism within them (Goldsmith and Scruton from the centre-right, for examples).
"(and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists"
Corbyn's policies were, in general, popular with the majority of voters. Even the majority of Tory voters are happy with the idea of renationalising lots of essential things - electricity, rail, water. Green policy is radical, that's why I support them, but the "mainstream" idea of where the centre is policy wise is dead off imho.
I don't know the Green Party in Beds, they may be an actual centrist local branch (I consider my branch here in Herts quite centrist). I know lots of Greens in Tory areas tend to be on the pragmatic / conservationist side of the general green movement, versus the more radical wings amongst younger Greens and those from the cities.
It wasn't meant as a criticism (I voted for Corbyn both times), but I do know lots of Greens too here in rural(ish) Surrey (I agree they vary, as we all do). They don't in general correspond with the typical floating voter view of them as soggy centrists who just want some more trees and wildlife. My point was just that the popular impression that we're all interchangeable is a mistake, and it's damaging at elections if we try to squabble more than we need to without explaining what we actually have distinctive views about.
Mr Bell, who has worked at the Guardian for more than four decades, said the newspaper had refused to publish any more of his cartoons, although it will continue to employ him until April 2024.
Well, there was certainly a lack of funny ones... Does that count?
Nah because otherwise he’d have been sacked years ago!
(Seriously, though, this latest one - with Netenyahu as a surgeon with boxing gloves. It seems a stretch to read that as a reference to “a pound of flesh”. I suspect that the Guardian is being hyper sensitive and/or was looking for an excuse to cut costs without paying a massive redundancy payment)
My guess is their advertisers had a word, and/or staff got fed up of Bell pinning the racist label on the paper. I'd agree with you that in this instance Bell is largely innocent, except insofar as it is insensitive at best to attack any Israeli leader immediately after the Hamas attack.
Meh.
“Not proven” rather than “largely innocent” methinks
Steve Bell claims the cartoon is an homage to one of Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. Both cartoons are shown here (who knew cartoonists had their own industry paper?)
Netenyahu is claiming to be orchestrating a “surgical strike” on Hamas but his boxing mentality means that the damage can’t be restricted to the target
On the Bell cartoons. They were never funny. They were always supposed to be an angry rant.
I think his problem is that, due to the modern doctrine of punching up/down, he feels unable to criticise racist speech from minority groups in his presence. Without that push back, he is getting immersed in some nasty stuff.
The woke/PC spineless wan**rs have stiffed him. This country lurches closer and closer to being China II, luckily they cannot afford the number of cameras and tame police that they can.
An interesting question would be which country out of China and the UK has the most CCTV cameras per head.
UK - since the Blair years, right? The UK loves CCTV - I imagine more for the belief that being watched makes people behave and a semi-Foucault idea of the Panopticon rather than the amount of useful data actually harvested.
Per pop seems to be USA (15 per 100) then China (14 per 100) then UK (7 per 100):
The United States has 15.28 CCTV cameras every 100 individuals, followed by China with 14.36 and the United Kingdom with 7.5. Other top 10 countries include Germany with 6.27 cameras per 100 individuals, Netherlands 5.8, Australia 4, Japan 2.72, France 2.46 and South Korea 1.99. https://aithority.com/news/top-10-countries-and-cities-by-number-of-cctv-cameras/
Those numbers look about right to me.
I wonder how many of the US ones are private/civil rather than state/government? I suspect we know the answer for China....
The voting system isn't crooked, everyone starts each election with zero votes and then the voters decide. Just put forward what you believe in and convince the most voters to back you. If you can't do that, take some responsibility for your own actions.
And Labour and Lib Dems aren't interchangeable. If they were, they'd be the same party not two very different ones.
FWIW my view is that the LibDems were wrong to target the seat and even now should ease off since it's really clear they're not in a position to win and they're simply increasing the chance that the Tories will hold the seat.
But to respond to your point, after talking to hundreds of voters over the weekend, it's clear that most voters don't see the parties as different in any significant way, and the appeals for tactical voting strengthen that perception (nobody asks for tactical votes from Reform UK, do they?). That might be a mistake - after all, we can all point to policy differences - but they elude the only vaguely engaged voter. After Starmer's move to the centre, and the general perception that the LibDems (and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists, what floating voters see is three similar parties squabbling, and it annoys them. In some cases it even means they don't vote for any of us.
I'm not actually arguing against tactical voting. But it would be good if the non-Tory parties agreed on some basic principles which respect the right of every party to make an effort:
1. The party that sees itself in the best position in win should use phrases like ". The Tories are [usual criticisms]. If you want to vote tactically to get them out, lend us your vote because ...". Don't use voodoo polls or disproportionate bar charts.
2. If a party can see that they're not in a position to win, they should argue for a positive vote. "You only get the chance to say how you think the country should be run every 4-5 years. Don't waste your vote on parochial and negative tactical voting, vote positively for us because..."
You'll still see parties who both think they can win adopting the first strategy, but put like that it avoids actually pissing everyone off, including the voters who we're all trying to impress.
I agree with what you say, and especially in this seat, but to play devil’s advocate a LibDem might note that they are back down to a minibus of seats and need to build back up, probably in different places than in 1990-2015 because their coalition of voters has changed. That would mean trying it on in “new” places.
But as I have said at length, I don’t personally think this seat was ever on for them.
"Stats for Lefties 🏳️⚧️ 🇵🇸 @LeftieStats 🚨 NEW: A Stroud councillor has quit Labour after Starmer said Israel has the right to withhold water and power from Gaza.
In 2021, Labour had 15 councillors in Stroud. 11 of these (73%) have since left Labour in opposition to Starmer, costing Labour the council leadership."
Starmer is making the choice that losing the left flank is either acceptable or won't happen come the GE in an attempt to appeal to the centre. That potentially sets him up well to win more seats - but will make his government unpopular. If he has already lost Labour's base of support then they will be less likely to support the Labour government, typically LD or Tory voters "lending" their vote will likely return "home" if displeased, and the waivers in the middle will only stay with Starmer for as long as they feel the Tories deserve to be punished.
I'd say that losing 11 out of 15 is the significant stat there.
Jessie Hoskin is herself a Momentum bod who joined in the Corbyn wave 8 years ago.
Anecdotally I have seen lots of left / Corbyn Labour members saying that fighting within the party is pointless and many have joined the Greens. Is that number significant at a GE? I don't think so. It may mean that Labour and Conservatives both eventually become parties more heavily reliant on national media with hollowed out on the ground operations in the future.
My hypothesis is that numbers of branches (some of them) were on one wing or the other, rather than all being mixed - so it would tend to be varied by area.
Morning everyone. Not quite as bright here today. Yet, anyway.
I’ve been one of those supporters of a ‘better’ voting system pretty well ever since I could vote, and until recently the tide seemed to be flowing, admittedly rather slowly, in a positive direction. However the last two or three governments seem to have stopped, and indeed reversed that process, ever since, perhaps coincidentally, the AV referendum!
Encouragingly many seem to be eschewing the "racist thickos cost us a referendum for something we didn't explain properly" (notable exception, a Professor) which so poisoned the UK's post-Brexit vote discussion. And led to the Johnson "administration" (sic).
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
Are you saying that FPTP doesn't empower political parties? Because I see the opposite. If we had PR we would arguably have 5 parties that could be part of a government - Tories, Labour, LDs, Greens and whatever far right party Farage leads. That would weaken the Tories and Labour - the main parties of government.
PR does also empowers voters because they can actually pick political parties they agree with rather than the least worst option who can win. Take me - I hate the LDs, but I hate them less than the Tories, so in my seat I felt I had to vote LD to kick out a Tory. That breeds resentment with our political system. If I not only knew I could vote Green but that it could actually lead to more Green representation in parliament - Greens who I know would push policies I agreed with (even if they do have to do some horse trading), then I'd be much happier with our system.
You talk about parties negotiating as if that is a negative or voters dislike it. I think most people understand that lots of people disagree with them and whilst they have a preferred policy preference, some meeting in the middle is fine. The lack of that in our FPTP system leads parties to only talking and negotiating within themselves.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
I think this is a symptom of mid-term polling not being of great use. I think people say how they would like to vote rather than how they will. I expect the Lib Dem vote to rise.
Anyway, the week in polls piece says:
Or take the most recent Survation MRP for Greenpeace. By my calculations, it shows that there would be 64 seats won by the Conservatives in England where the combined Labour and Lib Dem vote would be higher than the Conservative share and also where there would be 15 points or less between the Labour and Lib Dem share (i.e. where there wouldn’t be a big third party tactical squeeze). That would be up from 41 at the 2019 general election.
That's not actually out of the question. In 1992, the Labour and Lib Dem vote was greater than the Conservative vote in 106 of the 336 seats won by the Tories. In 1997, it actually increased to 127 despite the Tories winning only 165 seats. That's what happens when a party loses a lot of votes.
If people don't like the Tactical Voting guessing game then they should oppose FPTP.
Under PR systems, or even AV, voters can vote for what they actually want rather than be forced to choose between parties that they don't support.
More generally, in a good non-fptp system voters can provide more information into the system: instead of only being able to say "LD" I can say "LD would be best, but Labour would be OK, the Tories a third best and UKIP are awful". More information in means a better chance that the system can produce a result that more people can live with.
"Stats for Lefties 🏳️⚧️ 🇵🇸 @LeftieStats 🚨 NEW: A Stroud councillor has quit Labour after Starmer said Israel has the right to withhold water and power from Gaza.
In 2021, Labour had 15 councillors in Stroud. 11 of these (73%) have since left Labour in opposition to Starmer, costing Labour the council leadership."
Starmer is making the choice that losing the left flank is either acceptable or won't happen come the GE in an attempt to appeal to the centre. That potentially sets him up well to win more seats - but will make his government unpopular. If he has already lost Labour's base of support then they will be less likely to support the Labour government, typically LD or Tory voters "lending" their vote will likely return "home" if displeased, and the waivers in the middle will only stay with Starmer for as long as they feel the Tories deserve to be punished.
I'd say that losing 11 out of 15 is the significant stat there.
Jessie Hoskin is herself a Momentum bod who joined in the Corbyn wave 8 years ago.
Mr Bell, who has worked at the Guardian for more than four decades, said the newspaper had refused to publish any more of his cartoons, although it will continue to employ him until April 2024.
Well, there was certainly a lack of funny ones... Does that count?
Nah because otherwise he’d have been sacked years ago!
(Seriously, though, this latest one - with Netenyahu as a surgeon with boxing gloves. It seems a stretch to read that as a reference to “a pound of flesh”. I suspect that the Guardian is being hyper sensitive and/or was looking for an excuse to cut costs without paying a massive redundancy payment)
My guess is their advertisers had a word, and/or staff got fed up of Bell pinning the racist label on the paper. I'd agree with you that in this instance Bell is largely innocent, except insofar as it is insensitive at best to attack any Israeli leader immediately after the Hamas attack.
Meh.
“Not proven” rather than “largely innocent” methinks
Steve Bell claims the cartoon is an homage to one of Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. Both cartoons are shown here (who knew cartoonists had their own industry paper?)
Netenyahu is claiming to be orchestrating a “surgical strike” on Hamas but his boxing mentality means that the damage can’t be restricted to the target
On the Bell cartoons. They were never funny. They were always supposed to be an angry rant.
I think his problem is that, due to the modern doctrine of punching up/down, he feels unable to criticise racist speech from minority groups in his presence. Without that push back, he is getting immersed in some nasty stuff.
The woke/PC spineless wan**rs have stiffed him. This country lurches closer and closer to being China II, luckily they cannot afford the number of cameras and tame police that they can.
An interesting question would be which country out of China and the UK has the most CCTV cameras per head.
UK - since the Blair years, right? The UK loves CCTV - I imagine more for the belief that being watched makes people behave and a semi-Foucault idea of the Panopticon rather than the amount of useful data actually harvested.
Per pop seems to be USA (15 per 100) then China (14 per 100) then UK (7 per 100):
The United States has 15.28 CCTV cameras every 100 individuals, followed by China with 14.36 and the United Kingdom with 7.5. Other top 10 countries include Germany with 6.27 cameras per 100 individuals, Netherlands 5.8, Australia 4, Japan 2.72, France 2.46 and South Korea 1.99. https://aithority.com/news/top-10-countries-and-cities-by-number-of-cctv-cameras/
Those numbers look about right to me.
I wonder how many of the US ones are private/civil rather than state/government? I suspect we know the answer for China....
Interesting numbers, given that Americans say that the UK is a place full of CCTV cameras.
What’s generally not in the US, is municipal CCTV and traffic cameras, but pretty much every business has cameras everywhere.
Morning everyone. Not quite as bright here today. Yet, anyway.
I’ve been one of those supporters of a ‘better’ voting system pretty well ever since I could vote, and until recently the tide seemed to be flowing, admittedly rather slowly, in a positive direction. However the last two or three governments seem to have stopped, and indeed reversed that process, ever since, perhaps coincidentally, the AV referendum!
Tories very happy that the current system gives them a big advantage. If they slipped to the low 20% at a GE the system would switch to working against them - I confidently predict that in such a situation they would be rapidly promoting PR.
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
Are you saying that FPTP doesn't empower political parties? Because I see the opposite. If we had PR we would arguably have 5 parties that could be part of a government - Tories, Labour, LDs, Greens and whatever far right party Farage leads. That would weaken the Tories and Labour - the main parties of government.
PR does also empowers voters because they can actually pick political parties they agree with rather than the least worst option who can win. Take me - I hate the LDs, but I hate them less than the Tories, so in my seat I felt I had to vote LD to kick out a Tory. That breeds resentment with our political system. If I not only knew I could vote Green but that it could actually lead to more Green representation in parliament - Greens who I know would push policies I agreed with (even if they do have to do some horse trading), then I'd be much happier with our system.
You talk about parties negotiating as if that is a negative or voters dislike it. I think most people understand that lots of people disagree with them and whilst they have a preferred policy preference, some meeting in the middle is fine. The lack of that in our FPTP system leads parties to only talking and negotiating within themselves.
Any system that involves picking between political parties rather than between individual candidates is anathema to me. To repeat my oft heard mantra on here (sorry folks) we should be doing all we can to reduce the power of political parties over MPs not increase it. If you want a syatem that allows us to pick between candidates then great. I can go for that (which is why I was in favour of AV) but any system that has us picking betwen parties any more than we do now is a big leap in the wrong direction.
If you give seats to parties based on 'party share' the you are allowing parties to claim they own the votes rather than the MPs doing so. What price then crossing the floor or rebelling against your own party?
I think this is a symptom of mid-term polling not being of great use. I think people say how they would like to vote rather than how they will. I expect the Lib Dem vote to rise.
Anyway, the week in polls piece says:
Or take the most recent Survation MRP for Greenpeace. By my calculations, it shows that there would be 64 seats won by the Conservatives in England where the combined Labour and Lib Dem vote would be higher than the Conservative share and also where there would be 15 points or less between the Labour and Lib Dem share (i.e. where there wouldn’t be a big third party tactical squeeze). That would be up from 41 at the 2019 general election.
That's not actually out of the question. In 1992, the Labour and Lib Dem vote was greater than the Conservative vote in 106 of the 336 seats won by the Tories. In 1997, it actually increased to 127 despite the Tories winning only 165 seats. That's what happens when a party loses a lot of votes.
It’s presumably not uncommon in most British constituencies for all parties? It must be fairly normal to win with 40% of the vote and have two main rivals on 50% between them (split in various ways).
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
I mean, because that would increase the construction price and developers dislike having to spend money and the Tories have, since Thatcher really, been in the role of mediating the interests of developers and home owners.
I'll be interested in the details of this Labour plan for modern garden cities. If the idea is just send it out to developers on current specs, it is going to be awful - huge developments of new builds that will last a decade if we're lucky. If Labour do it seriously and put proper specs on things - solar, insulation, maybe even limit the average car per home design and aim to have things build in line with the idea of walkable cities - then it could be great.
If people don't like the Tactical Voting guessing game then they should oppose FPTP.
Under PR systems, or even AV, voters can vote for what they actually want rather than be forced to choose between parties that they don't support.
More generally, in a good non-fptp system voters can provide more information into the system: instead of only being able to say "LD" I can say "LD would be best, but Labour would be OK, the Tories a third best and UKIP are awful". More information in means a better chance that the system can produce a result that more people can live with.
As opposed to those they actually want. Its lowest common denominator thinking again.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
Morning everyone. Not quite as bright here today. Yet, anyway.
I’ve been one of those supporters of a ‘better’ voting system pretty well ever since I could vote, and until recently the tide seemed to be flowing, admittedly rather slowly, in a positive direction. However the last two or three governments seem to have stopped, and indeed reversed that process, ever since, perhaps coincidentally, the AV referendum!
Tories very happy that the current system gives them a big advantage. If they slipped to the low 20% at a GE the system would switch to working against them - I confidently predict that in such a situation they would be rapidly promoting PR.
They would. The Tories briefly backed PR in 1916, for fear they would be wiped out by universal suffrage.
But, most changes to the system are driven by hope of gaining electoral advantage.
The voting system isn't crooked, everyone starts each election with zero votes and then the voters decide. Just put forward what you believe in and convince the most voters to back you. If you can't do that, take some responsibility for your own actions.
And Labour and Lib Dems aren't interchangeable. If they were, they'd be the same party not two very different ones.
FWIW my view is that the LibDems were wrong to target the seat and even now should ease off since it's really clear they're not in a position to win and they're simply increasing the chance that the Tories will hold the seat.
But to respond to your point, after talking to hundreds of voters over the weekend, it's clear that most voters don't see the parties as different in any significant way, and the appeals for tactical voting strengthen that perception (nobody asks for tactical votes from Reform UK, do they?). That might be a mistake - after all, we can all point to policy differences - but they elude the only vaguely engaged voter. After Starmer's move to the centre, and the general perception that the LibDems (and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists, what floating voters see is three similar parties squabbling, and it annoys them. In some cases it even means they don't vote for any of us.
I'm not actually arguing against tactical voting. But it would be good if the non-Tory parties agreed on some basic principles which respect the right of every party to make an effort:
1. The party that sees itself in the best position in win should use phrases like ". The Tories are [usual criticisms]. If you want to vote tactically to get them out, lend us your vote because ...". Don't use voodoo polls or disproportionate bar charts.
2. If a party can see that they're not in a position to win, they should argue for a positive vote. "You only get the chance to say how you think the country should be run every 4-5 years. Don't waste your vote on parochial and negative tactical voting, vote positively for us because..."
You'll still see parties who both think they can win adopting the first strategy, but put like that it avoids actually pissing everyone off, including the voters who we're all trying to impress.
"(and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists"
Corbyn's policies were, in general, popular with the majority of voters. Even the majority of Tory voters are happy with the idea of renationalising lots of essential things - electricity, rail, water. Green policy is radical, that's why I support them, but the "mainstream" idea of where the centre is policy wise is dead off imho.
I don't know the Green Party in Beds, they may be an actual centrist local branch (I consider my branch here in Herts quite centrist). I know lots of Greens in Tory areas tend to be on the pragmatic / conservationist side of the general green movement, versus the more radical wings amongst younger Greens and those from the cities.
Yes, once you got away from the identity politics stuff, a lot of Corbyn's more more traditional politics (nationalisation, what the state spends its money on, etc) were popular. What they were not were credible. People liked them, but didn't believe the money raised by taxing other people would pay for them. So they didn't vote for them.
Morning everyone. Not quite as bright here today. Yet, anyway.
I’ve been one of those supporters of a ‘better’ voting system pretty well ever since I could vote, and until recently the tide seemed to be flowing, admittedly rather slowly, in a positive direction. However the last two or three governments seem to have stopped, and indeed reversed that process, ever since, perhaps coincidentally, the AV referendum!
Tories very happy that the current system gives them a big advantage. If they slipped to the low 20% at a GE the system would switch to working against them - I confidently predict that in such a situation they would be rapidly promoting PR.
It’s not ‘just’ the system. Recently we’ve seen the effective restrictions on the right to vote and the rather sneaky shift in mayoral elections to remove the ‘second choice’ option.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
I mean, because that would increase the construction price and developers dislike having to spend money and the Tories have, since Thatcher really, been in the role of mediating the interests of developers and home owners.
I'll be interested in the details of this Labour plan for modern garden cities. If the idea is just send it out to developers on current specs, it is going to be awful - huge developments of new builds that will last a decade if we're lucky. If Labour do it seriously and put proper specs on things - solar, insulation, maybe even limit the average car per home design and aim to have things build in line with the idea of walkable cities - then it could be great.
I agree. But as (I suspect) more of a few marketeer than you I also hope it would influence developments elsewhere when people see what they could have. It’s what government should do, in addition to regulation, to influence markets: sponsor examples of what good looks like.
Morning everyone. Not quite as bright here today. Yet, anyway.
I’ve been one of those supporters of a ‘better’ voting system pretty well ever since I could vote, and until recently the tide seemed to be flowing, admittedly rather slowly, in a positive direction. However the last two or three governments seem to have stopped, and indeed reversed that process, ever since, perhaps coincidentally, the AV referendum!
Tories very happy that the current system gives them a big advantage. If they slipped to the low 20% at a GE the system would switch to working against them - I confidently predict that in such a situation they would be rapidly promoting PR.
They would. The Tories briefly backed PR in 1916, for fear they would be wiped out by universal suffrage.
But, most changes to the system are driven by hope of gaining electoral advantage.
And IIRC, shortly afterwards, the Liberals voted against PR (or against STV, which isn't PR but approximates to a rough version of it), despite the Asquith / LG split, when Labour was deeply unpopular for its ambivalence towards participation in WWI.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
I mean, because that would increase the construction price and developers dislike having to spend money and the Tories have, since Thatcher really, been in the role of mediating the interests of developers and home owners.
I'll be interested in the details of this Labour plan for modern garden cities. If the idea is just send it out to developers on current specs, it is going to be awful - huge developments of new builds that will last a decade if we're lucky. If Labour do it seriously and put proper specs on things - solar, insulation, maybe even limit the average car per home design and aim to have things build in line with the idea of walkable cities - then it could be great.
Agree generally but the limiting cars per household idea is one of those that always fails because it runs up against real life. If you can absolutely gaurantee that public transport will be there all the time when people need it then fine. But no one can. So people still buy the cars and then block the streets with them.
Forget shopping etc for a minute. How many people live within walking distance of their work?
Morning everyone. Not quite as bright here today. Yet, anyway.
I’ve been one of those supporters of a ‘better’ voting system pretty well ever since I could vote, and until recently the tide seemed to be flowing, admittedly rather slowly, in a positive direction. However the last two or three governments seem to have stopped, and indeed reversed that process, ever since, perhaps coincidentally, the AV referendum!
Tories very happy that the current system gives them a big advantage. If they slipped to the low 20% at a GE the system would switch to working against them - I confidently predict that in such a situation they would be rapidly promoting PR.
It’s not ‘just’ the system. Recently we’ve seen the effective restrictions on the right to vote and the rather sneaky shift in mayoral elections to remove the ‘second choice’ option.
I thought the change to the London system was awful. At least put it to a vote of Londoners!
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
Are you saying that FPTP doesn't empower political parties? Because I see the opposite. If we had PR we would arguably have 5 parties that could be part of a government - Tories, Labour, LDs, Greens and whatever far right party Farage leads. That would weaken the Tories and Labour - the main parties of government.
PR does also empowers voters because they can actually pick political parties they agree with rather than the least worst option who can win. Take me - I hate the LDs, but I hate them less than the Tories, so in my seat I felt I had to vote LD to kick out a Tory. That breeds resentment with our political system. If I not only knew I could vote Green but that it could actually lead to more Green representation in parliament - Greens who I know would push policies I agreed with (even if they do have to do some horse trading), then I'd be much happier with our system.
You talk about parties negotiating as if that is a negative or voters dislike it. I think most people understand that lots of people disagree with them and whilst they have a preferred policy preference, some meeting in the middle is fine. The lack of that in our FPTP system leads parties to only talking and negotiating within themselves.
Any system that involves picking between political parties rather than between individual candidates is anathema to me. To repeat my oft heard mantra on here (sorry folks) we should be doing all we can to reduce the power of political parties over MPs not increase it. If you want a syatem that allows us to pick between candidates then great. I can go for that (which is why I was in favour of AV) but any system that has us picking betwen parties any more than we do now is a big leap in the wrong direction.
If you give seats to parties based on 'party share' the you are allowing parties to claim they own the votes rather than the MPs doing so. What price then crossing the floor or rebelling against your own party?
I can see the reasoning of that, and again would be willing to do something that combines both - you could take a model similar to how the GLA and Germany works which (in my limited understanding) uses STV for regional elections and then has a PR top up afterwards. That, in my view, combines the best of both.
I don't necessarily see the need for weak parties inherently - I think weak parties are good in a system where parties alienate the electorate so they aren't engaging in party politics (like now). In a world more like the past, where party membership and union membership was higher, I think political parties are good vehicles for collective political will (like how labour unions are good for the collective political will of workers). Even if we had a system that banned parties and only had individuals standing in individualised seats - people would form governing and opposition coalitions based on their policy agreements and de facto parties would emerge.
Horrific violence that violates fundamental norms of humanity has claimed the lives of over 1,200 in Israel and 1,400 Palestinians, including 447 children.
The way that war is conducted matters. The IRC is calling on the international community to ensure the following: (1/8)
Horrific violence that violates fundamental norms of humanity has claimed the lives of over 1,200 in Israel and 1,400 Palestinians, including 447 children.
The way that war is conducted matters. The IRC is calling on the international community to ensure the following: (1/8)
I wonder how many of the US ones are private/civil rather than state/government? I suspect we know the answer for China....
There is a huge difference between people having a Ring doorbell cameras and a camera on a tall pole in the middle of a street that feeds a government controlled surveillance system. It's stupid to just count the numbers.
On Gaza, they had the (v sensible, English) bloke from UN Human Rights on R4 this morning. Spoke a lot of sense. Drew a distinction between the "rules of war" (broken by both sides) and "war crimes" (for the judges to decide).
Also interestingly he says that the people of Gaza have nothing to do with Hamas' act.
Mr Bell, who has worked at the Guardian for more than four decades, said the newspaper had refused to publish any more of his cartoons, although it will continue to employ him until April 2024.
Well, there was certainly a lack of funny ones... Does that count?
Nah because otherwise he’d have been sacked years ago!
(Seriously, though, this latest one - with Netenyahu as a surgeon with boxing gloves. It seems a stretch to read that as a reference to “a pound of flesh”. I suspect that the Guardian is being hyper sensitive and/or was looking for an excuse to cut costs without paying a massive redundancy payment)
My guess is their advertisers had a word, and/or staff got fed up of Bell pinning the racist label on the paper. I'd agree with you that in this instance Bell is largely innocent, except insofar as it is insensitive at best to attack any Israeli leader immediately after the Hamas attack.
Meh.
“Not proven” rather than “largely innocent” methinks
Steve Bell claims the cartoon is an homage to one of Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. Both cartoons are shown here (who knew cartoonists had their own industry paper?)
Netenyahu is claiming to be orchestrating a “surgical strike” on Hamas but his boxing mentality means that the damage can’t be restricted to the target
On the Bell cartoons. They were never funny. They were always supposed to be an angry rant.
I think his problem is that, due to the modern doctrine of punching up/down, he feels unable to criticise racist speech from minority groups in his presence. Without that push back, he is getting immersed in some nasty stuff.
The woke/PC spineless wan**rs have stiffed him. This country lurches closer and closer to being China II, luckily they cannot afford the number of cameras and tame police that they can.
An interesting question would be which country out of China and the UK has the most CCTV cameras per head.
UK - since the Blair years, right? The UK loves CCTV - I imagine more for the belief that being watched makes people behave and a semi-Foucault idea of the Panopticon rather than the amount of useful data actually harvested.
Per pop seems to be USA (15 per 100) then China (14 per 100) then UK (7 per 100):
The United States has 15.28 CCTV cameras every 100 individuals, followed by China with 14.36 and the United Kingdom with 7.5. Other top 10 countries include Germany with 6.27 cameras per 100 individuals, Netherlands 5.8, Australia 4, Japan 2.72, France 2.46 and South Korea 1.99. https://aithority.com/news/top-10-countries-and-cities-by-number-of-cctv-cameras/
Those numbers look about right to me.
I wonder how many of the US ones are private/civil rather than state/government? I suspect we know the answer for China....
Interesting numbers, given that Americans say that the UK is a place full of CCTV cameras.
What’s generally not in the US, is municipal CCTV and traffic cameras, but pretty much every business has cameras everywhere.
It is astonishing the amount of time the police spend ingathering CCTV footage in any investigation of substance. In my recent experience some of the most useful have been doorcams attached to the bell of a house which usually give a good view of both the garden and the street outside.
Horrific violence that violates fundamental norms of humanity has claimed the lives of over 1,200 in Israel and 1,400 Palestinians, including 447 children.
The way that war is conducted matters. The IRC is calling on the international community to ensure the following: (1/8)
So are you taking the position essentially expressed by the Twitter/X OP that there is no comparison between the deaths of civilians at the hands of Hamas and the deaths of civilians at the hands of the Israeli state? I thought the whole point of universal human rights and such was that all peoples should be considered of equal worth and, when it comes to even just wars, civilians should not be targeted?
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
I mean, because that would increase the construction price and developers dislike having to spend money and the Tories have, since Thatcher really, been in the role of mediating the interests of developers and home owners.
I'll be interested in the details of this Labour plan for modern garden cities. If the idea is just send it out to developers on current specs, it is going to be awful - huge developments of new builds that will last a decade if we're lucky. If Labour do it seriously and put proper specs on things - solar, insulation, maybe even limit the average car per home design and aim to have things build in line with the idea of walkable cities - then it could be great.
I'm not sure that people understand just how wretched new builds tend to be. It isn't universal - some are decent. But for so many (myself included) a new build home quickly shows just how cheaply it was thrown together. My former estate of 1,100 new homes from three builders had serious issues on all house designs from all three builders. So it didn;'t matter what you bought or from whom, it was crap.
In our case we had a house that audibly creaked in windy weather, with cracking plaster on various walls and as we discovered several years after buying it, empty cavity walls where Barratts had "forgotten" to install insulation. On every house they built. To say nothing about the garden made from rubble etc etc etc.
House prices have gone bonkers, yet the housebuilders construct the cheapest possible crap. This is the british problem in full effect - crap product at top money.
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
It all depends on what kind of PR you have in mind, Mr Dancer. If you treat the entire country as a single constituency, then you would be right. But I am not aware that anybody is advocating that.
The Single Transferable Vote system - which the Liberals were introducing ages ago, only for the process to be cancelled because of the First World War - gives far more power to individual voters, to individual candidates and particular policies.
And political parties become much less important. They lose control once individuals can come together over single issues.
The is why control freaks like Sunek and Starmer are opposed to electoral reform. Their objective is to be tinpot dictators.
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
Are you saying that FPTP doesn't empower political parties? Because I see the opposite. If we had PR we would arguably have 5 parties that could be part of a government - Tories, Labour, LDs, Greens and whatever far right party Farage leads. That would weaken the Tories and Labour - the main parties of government.
PR does also empowers voters because they can actually pick political parties they agree with rather than the least worst option who can win. Take me - I hate the LDs, but I hate them less than the Tories, so in my seat I felt I had to vote LD to kick out a Tory. That breeds resentment with our political system. If I not only knew I could vote Green but that it could actually lead to more Green representation in parliament - Greens who I know would push policies I agreed with (even if they do have to do some horse trading), then I'd be much happier with our system.
You talk about parties negotiating as if that is a negative or voters dislike it. I think most people understand that lots of people disagree with them and whilst they have a preferred policy preference, some meeting in the middle is fine. The lack of that in our FPTP system leads parties to only talking and negotiating within themselves.
Any system that involves picking between political parties rather than between individual candidates is anathema to me. To repeat my oft heard mantra on here (sorry folks) we should be doing all we can to reduce the power of political parties over MPs not increase it. If you want a syatem that allows us to pick between candidates then great. I can go for that (which is why I was in favour of AV) but any system that has us picking betwen parties any more than we do now is a big leap in the wrong direction.
If you give seats to parties based on 'party share' the you are allowing parties to claim they own the votes rather than the MPs doing so. What price then crossing the floor or rebelling against your own party?
I can see the reasoning of that, and again would be willing to do something that combines both - you could take a model similar to how the GLA and Germany works which (in my limited understanding) uses STV for regional elections and then has a PR top up afterwards. That, in my view, combines the best of both.
I don't necessarily see the need for weak parties inherently - I think weak parties are good in a system where parties alienate the electorate so they aren't engaging in party politics (like now). In a world more like the past, where party membership and union membership was higher, I think political parties are good vehicles for collective political will (like how labour unions are good for the collective political will of workers). Even if we had a system that banned parties and only had individuals standing in individualised seats - people would form governing and opposition coalitions based on their policy agreements and de facto parties would emerge.
I’m less bothered by a system which has people voting for parties because it acknowledges the important reality of a general election. I happen to think my local Conservative candidate is a good chap but I’m never going to vote for him because his election would help enable Rishi Sunak to stay on as Prime Minister. For me, however excellent a local candidate is pales into insignificance compared to deciding who would form the government so I prefer to vote on that basis. Therefore I would have no problem with a party list style system which accurately reflect the support of each party in the country. In local elections of course it’s a different story.
I presume it's something to do with having (or not) a bank account.
No.
Fair play to HSBC and others but they've gone out of their way to provide banking services for the homeless.
Yes I saw the HSBC campaign. V good. But it was not my point. Many people don't want a bank account and hence I wondered if you needed a bank account to be able to accept card payments.
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
Are you saying that FPTP doesn't empower political parties? Because I see the opposite. If we had PR we would arguably have 5 parties that could be part of a government - Tories, Labour, LDs, Greens and whatever far right party Farage leads. That would weaken the Tories and Labour - the main parties of government.
PR does also empowers voters because they can actually pick political parties they agree with rather than the least worst option who can win. Take me - I hate the LDs, but I hate them less than the Tories, so in my seat I felt I had to vote LD to kick out a Tory. That breeds resentment with our political system. If I not only knew I could vote Green but that it could actually lead to more Green representation in parliament - Greens who I know would push policies I agreed with (even if they do have to do some horse trading), then I'd be much happier with our system.
You talk about parties negotiating as if that is a negative or voters dislike it. I think most people understand that lots of people disagree with them and whilst they have a preferred policy preference, some meeting in the middle is fine. The lack of that in our FPTP system leads parties to only talking and negotiating within themselves.
Any system that involves picking between political parties rather than between individual candidates is anathema to me. To repeat my oft heard mantra on here (sorry folks) we should be doing all we can to reduce the power of political parties over MPs not increase it. If you want a syatem that allows us to pick between candidates then great. I can go for that (which is why I was in favour of AV) but any system that has us picking betwen parties any more than we do now is a big leap in the wrong direction.
If you give seats to parties based on 'party share' the you are allowing parties to claim they own the votes rather than the MPs doing so. What price then crossing the floor or rebelling against your own party?
I can see the reasoning of that, and again would be willing to do something that combines both - you could take a model similar to how the GLA and Germany works which (in my limited understanding) uses STV for regional elections and then has a PR top up afterwards. That, in my view, combines the best of both.
I don't necessarily see the need for weak parties inherently - I think weak parties are good in a system where parties alienate the electorate so they aren't engaging in party politics (like now). In a world more like the past, where party membership and union membership was higher, I think political parties are good vehicles for collective political will (like how labour unions are good for the collective political will of workers). Even if we had a system that banned parties and only had individuals standing in individualised seats - people would form governing and opposition coalitions based on their policy agreements and de facto parties would emerge.
No one is talking about banning parties (well I'm not anyway) but we do need to massively reduce their power over MPs. Hence my assertion that all votes in Parliament should be free votes.
I wonder how many of the US ones are private/civil rather than state/government? I suspect we know the answer for China....
There is a huge difference between people having a Ring doorbell cameras and a camera on a tall pole in the middle of a street that feeds a government controlled surveillance system. It's stupid to just count the numbers.
I mean personally I have more concern about the Ring doorbell cameras on people's doors. CCTV, from my understanding, has a system of checks to make sure police aren't abusing it. Ring just sells the data straight to the cops (in the US at least), and allows profiteering off of the modern Panopticon.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
IMO nearly everybody will notice a few extra grand on the buying price, because you can get a posher kitchen, more furniture, a small conservatory, or a posh holiday, or a car, instead of slightly lower bills each month for 10 years.
The values of our culture are "I want it NOW", rather than "let's spend now for the future benefits".
Why do people in older houses (yes I know you have an unusual situation - most eg 1930s semis or 1980ss 3-beds are not listed) do not invest in their properties to cut their heating bills by half?
Official results page, posted by @DoubleCarpet on the last thread.
Thanks. So far, in the Sejm, the L&J party seems to be doing somewhat better than the exit poll, whilst the Civic group are doing somewhat worse. Currently 39.92 to 26.45. That's quite a lead. In a FPTP system it would be a massacre.
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
Are you saying that FPTP doesn't empower political parties? Because I see the opposite. If we had PR we would arguably have 5 parties that could be part of a government - Tories, Labour, LDs, Greens and whatever far right party Farage leads. That would weaken the Tories and Labour - the main parties of government.
PR does also empowers voters because they can actually pick political parties they agree with rather than the least worst option who can win. Take me - I hate the LDs, but I hate them less than the Tories, so in my seat I felt I had to vote LD to kick out a Tory. That breeds resentment with our political system. If I not only knew I could vote Green but that it could actually lead to more Green representation in parliament - Greens who I know would push policies I agreed with (even if they do have to do some horse trading), then I'd be much happier with our system.
You talk about parties negotiating as if that is a negative or voters dislike it. I think most people understand that lots of people disagree with them and whilst they have a preferred policy preference, some meeting in the middle is fine. The lack of that in our FPTP system leads parties to only talking and negotiating within themselves.
Any system that involves picking between political parties rather than between individual candidates is anathema to me. To repeat my oft heard mantra on here (sorry folks) we should be doing all we can to reduce the power of political parties over MPs not increase it. If you want a syatem that allows us to pick between candidates then great. I can go for that (which is why I was in favour of AV) but any system that has us picking betwen parties any more than we do now is a big leap in the wrong direction.
If you give seats to parties based on 'party share' the you are allowing parties to claim they own the votes rather than the MPs doing so. What price then crossing the floor or rebelling against your own party?
With respect, I fear you have your head buried in the sands of idealism. When do you think any GE, or even by-election was decided on who was the better candidate rather than which party the candidates represented?
To achieve your ideals we would have to ban political parties and consequentially it would become very difficult to know what each candidate stood for. Forming a government might be a tad tricky too.
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
Are you saying that FPTP doesn't empower political parties? Because I see the opposite. If we had PR we would arguably have 5 parties that could be part of a government - Tories, Labour, LDs, Greens and whatever far right party Farage leads. That would weaken the Tories and Labour - the main parties of government.
PR does also empowers voters because they can actually pick political parties they agree with rather than the least worst option who can win. Take me - I hate the LDs, but I hate them less than the Tories, so in my seat I felt I had to vote LD to kick out a Tory. That breeds resentment with our political system. If I not only knew I could vote Green but that it could actually lead to more Green representation in parliament - Greens who I know would push policies I agreed with (even if they do have to do some horse trading), then I'd be much happier with our system.
You talk about parties negotiating as if that is a negative or voters dislike it. I think most people understand that lots of people disagree with them and whilst they have a preferred policy preference, some meeting in the middle is fine. The lack of that in our FPTP system leads parties to only talking and negotiating within themselves.
Any system that involves picking between political parties rather than between individual candidates is anathema to me. To repeat my oft heard mantra on here (sorry folks) we should be doing all we can to reduce the power of political parties over MPs not increase it. If you want a syatem that allows us to pick between candidates then great. I can go for that (which is why I was in favour of AV) but any system that has us picking betwen parties any more than we do now is a big leap in the wrong direction.
If you give seats to parties based on 'party share' the you are allowing parties to claim they own the votes rather than the MPs doing so. What price then crossing the floor or rebelling against your own party?
I can see the reasoning of that, and again would be willing to do something that combines both - you could take a model similar to how the GLA and Germany works which (in my limited understanding) uses STV for regional elections and then has a PR top up afterwards. That, in my view, combines the best of both.
I don't necessarily see the need for weak parties inherently - I think weak parties are good in a system where parties alienate the electorate so they aren't engaging in party politics (like now). In a world more like the past, where party membership and union membership was higher, I think political parties are good vehicles for collective political will (like how labour unions are good for the collective political will of workers). Even if we had a system that banned parties and only had individuals standing in individualised seats - people would form governing and opposition coalitions based on their policy agreements and de facto parties would emerge.
No one is talking about banning parties (well I'm not anyway) but we do need to massively reduce their power over MPs. Hence my assertion that all votes in Parliament should be free votes.
I wasn't saying you were, I was just saying that the kind of extreme logical conclusion of your position is one where each local MP election is truly a local election would still lead to national politics and the emergence of things that look like political parties and all the power that comes with that.
I also think every vote should be a free vote and that whipping is bad - seems like you would like the Green Party of England and Wales which takes that position on how their elected members vote (sometimes to the dismay of its members)
Seeing incumbents defeated in Poland and NZ, it makes me think that the US Republicans could, if they found an ordinary presidential candidate who seems like an average American, easily win the next Presidential election.
Official results page, posted by @DoubleCarpet on the last thread.
Thanks. So far, in the Sejm, the L&J party seems to be doing somewhat better than the Civic group, who in turn are doing somewhat worse. Currently 39.92 to 26.45. That's quite a lead. In a FPTP system it would be a massacre.
I had completely missed Poland's lurch to the right over the past however long. "Europe", one thinks - none of that religio-mediaeval bollocks here.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
Perhaps better suited to sunny Sahara than grey England, but nonetheless a 1000km range.
Nearly everybody will notice a few extra grand on the buying price, because you can get a posher kitchen, more furniture, a small conservatory, or a posh holiday, or a car, instead of slightly lower bills each month for 10 years.
The values of our culture are "I want it NOW", rather than "let's spend now for the future benefits".
Why do people in older houses (yes I know you have an unusual situation - most eg 1930s semis or 1980ss 3-beds are not listed) do not invest in their properties to cut their heating bills by half?
Because that often takes an outlay that is a major commitment and a lot of disruption. Roling that into the build before they buy and then having the cost spread out in their mortage at a few tens of pounds extra a month removes the sting.
Mr Bell, who has worked at the Guardian for more than four decades, said the newspaper had refused to publish any more of his cartoons, although it will continue to employ him until April 2024.
Well, there was certainly a lack of funny ones... Does that count?
Nah because otherwise he’d have been sacked years ago!
(Seriously, though, this latest one - with Netenyahu as a surgeon with boxing gloves. It seems a stretch to read that as a reference to “a pound of flesh”. I suspect that the Guardian is being hyper sensitive and/or was looking for an excuse to cut costs without paying a massive redundancy payment)
My guess is their advertisers had a word, and/or staff got fed up of Bell pinning the racist label on the paper. I'd agree with you that in this instance Bell is largely innocent, except insofar as it is insensitive at best to attack any Israeli leader immediately after the Hamas attack.
Meh.
“Not proven” rather than “largely innocent” methinks
Horrific violence that violates fundamental norms of humanity has claimed the lives of over 1,200 in Israel and 1,400 Palestinians, including 447 children.
The way that war is conducted matters. The IRC is calling on the international community to ensure the following: (1/8)
So are you taking the position essentially expressed by the Twitter/X OP that there is no comparison between the deaths of civilians at the hands of Hamas and the deaths of civilians at the hands of the Israeli state? I thought the whole point of universal human rights and such was that all peoples should be considered of equal worth and, when it comes to even just wars, civilians should not be targeted?
Most of the Palestinian deaths were Hamas combatants, most of the Israeli deaths civilians.
The voting system isn't crooked, everyone starts each election with zero votes and then the voters decide. Just put forward what you believe in and convince the most voters to back you. If you can't do that, take some responsibility for your own actions.
And Labour and Lib Dems aren't interchangeable. If they were, they'd be the same party not two very different ones.
FWIW my view is that the LibDems were wrong to target the seat and even now should ease off since it's really clear they're not in a position to win and they're simply increasing the chance that the Tories will hold the seat.
But to respond to your point, after talking to hundreds of voters over the weekend, it's clear that most voters don't see the parties as different in any significant way, and the appeals for tactical voting strengthen that perception (nobody asks for tactical votes from Reform UK, do they?). That might be a mistake - after all, we can all point to policy differences - but they elude the only vaguely engaged voter. After Starmer's move to the centre, and the general perception that the LibDems (and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists, what floating voters see is three similar parties squabbling, and it annoys them. In some cases it even means they don't vote for any of us.
I'm not actually arguing against tactical voting. But it would be good if the non-Tory parties agreed on some basic principles which respect the right of every party to make an effort:
1. The party that sees itself in the best position in win should use phrases like ". The Tories are [usual criticisms]. If you want to vote tactically to get them out, lend us your vote because ...". Don't use voodoo polls or disproportionate bar charts.
2. If a party can see that they're not in a position to win, they should argue for a positive vote. "You only get the chance to say how you think the country should be run every 4-5 years. Don't waste your vote on parochial and negative tactical voting, vote positively for us because..."
You'll still see parties who both think they can win adopting the first strategy, but put like that it avoids actually pissing everyone off, including the voters who we're all trying to impress.
"(and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists"
Corbyn's policies were, in general, popular with the majority of voters. Even the majority of Tory voters are happy with the idea of renationalising lots of essential things - electricity, rail, water. Green policy is radical, that's why I support them, but the "mainstream" idea of where the centre is policy wise is dead off imho.
I don't know the Green Party in Beds, they may be an actual centrist local branch (I consider my branch here in Herts quite centrist). I know lots of Greens in Tory areas tend to be on the pragmatic / conservationist side of the general green movement, versus the more radical wings amongst younger Greens and those from the cities.
Yes, once you got away from the identity politics stuff, a lot of Corbyn's more more traditional politics (nationalisation, what the state spends its money on, etc) were popular. What they were not were credible. People liked them, but didn't believe the money raised by taxing other people would pay for them. So they didn't vote for them.
More people voted Labour in 2017 than at any other time this Century
For me the biggest difference is looking at the crowds that attend the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrations and marches.
The Pro-Palestinian ones are clearly very aggressive, seemingly filled with hate. Instances where they've seen someone on the other side and have gone after them. Also cases where they are shouting incredibly offensive chants - I believe "gas the Jews" was shouted outside the Sydney Opera House, for shame.
The Pro-Israeli demonstrations have, from what I've seen, been very quiet and dignified instances. Often vigils more than demonstrations. No one is shouting and you don't fear that one of them is going to suddenly attack someone else.
I think the Jews have far more to fear right now and I hope that if it comes to it that I would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them to protect them.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
IMO nearly everybody will notice a few extra grand on the buying price, because you can get a posher kitchen, more furniture, a small conservatory, or a posh holiday, or a car, instead of slightly lower bills each month for 10 years.
The values of our culture are "I want it NOW", rather than "let's spend now for the future benefits".
Why do people in older houses (yes I know you have an unusual situation - most eg 1930s semis or 1980ss 3-beds are not listed) do not invest in their properties to cut their heating bills by half?
It's a very small minority who do the investment.
We've been round this house. If you are living hand to mouth or bill to bill you can't just spaff a few grand on something that will save you money over the longer term because you simply don't have those few grand. So the poor continue to be poor while the rich find many ways of saving money and hence becoming richer.
Power to the People is what I say - @148grss are you with me!
I wonder how many of the US ones are private/civil rather than state/government? I suspect we know the answer for China....
There is a huge difference between people having a Ring doorbell cameras and a camera on a tall pole in the middle of a street that feeds a government controlled surveillance system. It's stupid to just count the numbers.
I mean personally I have more concern about the Ring doorbell cameras on people's doors. CCTV, from my understanding, has a system of checks to make sure police aren't abusing it. Ring just sells the data straight to the cops (in the US at least), and allows profiteering off of the modern Panopticon.
CCTV is 'supposed' to have checks. But most of the time it is not even the police who are monitoring/maintaining it but some minimum wage council employee (or contractor) with minimum training and little or no oversight.
Dr. Foxy, people, under PR, can indeed vote for what they want. And then have no guarantee of getting it if their chosen party trades away their preferred policy in coalition negotiations.
In general people don't care about detailed policies. People don't read manifestos. I suspect that it is rare that a voter would agree with every policy in a manifesto if they cared to read it. There are typically dozens of policies.
People vote for a leader that they approve of and has a positive slogan and demeanour, not detailed policies.
Coalitions represent a majority of electors views, rather than the minority elected dictatorships we have to endure under FPTP.
I have absolutely no idea how to interpret this data.
It seems like they'll be counting for a couple of days but I don't know how long it'll be until there's enough to make a confident projection.
The link from @DoubleCarpet can be translated and shows 5.5m votes counted already so they have made a fairly substantial start. I have no clear understanding of the different powers of the Sejm and the Senate though.
Horrific violence that violates fundamental norms of humanity has claimed the lives of over 1,200 in Israel and 1,400 Palestinians, including 447 children.
The way that war is conducted matters. The IRC is calling on the international community to ensure the following: (1/8)
So are you taking the position essentially expressed by the Twitter/X OP that there is no comparison between the deaths of civilians at the hands of Hamas and the deaths of civilians at the hands of the Israeli state? I thought the whole point of universal human rights and such was that all peoples should be considered of equal worth and, when it comes to even just wars, civilians should not be targeted?
Most of the Palestinian deaths were Hamas combatants, most of the Israeli deaths civilians.
I do not regard them as morally equivalent.
Do you?
Where are you getting the evidence that most of the deaths in Gaza have been of Hamas combatants? Is it only Hamas combatants that are living in tower blocks or using hospitals? The death toll in Gaza is almost 2.5k, with almost 10k casualties. Latest number suggest just over 700 Palestinian children have been killed in air strikes in Gaza, which makes sense given the average age there. Are they mostly Hamas?
I think the deaths of any civilians are equally important, yes. Israel has stated specifically that they are going for a disproportionate response to the attack by Hamas, which is unacceptable.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
I mean, because that would increase the construction price and developers dislike having to spend money and the Tories have, since Thatcher really, been in the role of mediating the interests of developers and home owners.
I'll be interested in the details of this Labour plan for modern garden cities. If the idea is just send it out to developers on current specs, it is going to be awful - huge developments of new builds that will last a decade if we're lucky. If Labour do it seriously and put proper specs on things - solar, insulation, maybe even limit the average car per home design and aim to have things build in line with the idea of walkable cities - then it could be great.
Agree generally but the limiting cars per household idea is one of those that always fails because it runs up against real life. If you can absolutely gaurantee that public transport will be there all the time when people need it then fine. But no one can. So people still buy the cars and then block the streets with them.
Forget shopping etc for a minute. How many people live within walking distance of their work?
I don't think the limiting the number of cars is the way to go. Plenty of trips will still need them, and even in a walking/cycling nirvana overall mileage won't be reduced much as it's the short journeys we wish to eliminate.
In terms of distance to work - 2/3rd of all commutes are under 6 miles, a third under 3 miles. A 30 minute cycle or 15 minute cycle.
Horrific violence that violates fundamental norms of humanity has claimed the lives of over 1,200 in Israel and 1,400 Palestinians, including 447 children.
The way that war is conducted matters. The IRC is calling on the international community to ensure the following: (1/8)
So are you taking the position essentially expressed by the Twitter/X OP that there is no comparison between the deaths of civilians at the hands of Hamas and the deaths of civilians at the hands of the Israeli state? I thought the whole point of universal human rights and such was that all peoples should be considered of equal worth and, when it comes to even just wars, civilians should not be targeted?
Most of the Palestinian deaths were Hamas combatants, most of the Israeli deaths civilians.
I do not regard them as morally equivalent.
Do you?
More than 700 children already been killed in the bombardment of Gaza in the last few days, IIRC. I'm guessing they're not Hamas combatants.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
IMO nearly everybody will notice a few extra grand on the buying price, because you can get a posher kitchen, more furniture, a small conservatory, or a posh holiday, or a car, instead of slightly lower bills each month for 10 years.
The values of our culture are "I want it NOW", rather than "let's spend now for the future benefits".
Why do people in older houses (yes I know you have an unusual situation - most eg 1930s semis or 1980ss 3-beds are not listed) do not invest in their properties to cut their heating bills by half?
It's a very small minority who do the investment.
We've been round this house. If you are living hand to mouth or bill to bill you can't just spaff a few grand on something that will save you money over the longer term because you simply don't have those few grand. So the poor continue to be poor while the rich find many ways of saving money and hence becoming richer.
Power to the People is what I say - @148grss are you with me!
If by power to the people you mean the dictatorship of the proletarian - totally with you @TOPPING
This is a much more interesting Biden quote from that article:
it would be a mistake … for Israel to occupy … Gaza again,” Biden added. “But going in but taking out the extremists — the Hezbollah is up north but Hamas down south — is a necessary requirement.
Biden advocating an invasion of Lebanon (even if he might be right from an Israeli defence point of view) is hardly likely to ease tensions in Northern Israel.
I also suspect he wouldn’t have said it if it hadn’t already been discussed
Edit: rereading it, the “is” is critical. It makes it a statement of fact - equating Hamas to Hezbollah - rather than a suggestion that taking out both is warranted. But it does lay the groundwork for a future northern incursion
This is the thing, I don't think the equating is unjustified. Nor that Hezbollah are not a threat. Just seemed a bit daft for the US president to raise tensions in that way before the Israelis are ready to do whatever they decide.
Perhaps they have already decided.
Hezbollah is I think far more formidable than Hamas, estimated by the USA to be receiving $700 billion per annum from Iran back in 2018, and $100 million per annum back in 2005.
That's why I don't see a long-term way out of this that will hold; it is in the interest of some actors in the region, who also place a low value of human life of their own side or the other side, to maintain the conflict.
That is another version of the point made for half a century that Arab Governments had an interest in keeping Palestinian refugees, or 'refugees' depending on your view, stateless and in camps...
It's a little more complicated than that. The majority of Palestinian refugees in Jordan (the largest single diaspora) are fully naturalised citizens. Even Egypt, which has been exceedingly reluctant to accept refugees, has something like 50k citizens of Palestinian origin.
There's also the fact that the deep rooted attachment to the "right of return" makes refugees reluctant to pursue alternate citizenship.
We are, of course, partly, and unwittingly responsible for this mess, having created a separate Palestinian citizenship in the first place as well as encouraging aspirations for a Jewish state in the region.
Some heartening news for a change this morning then. After a series of reverses, the latest in Australia, the Forces of the Enlightenment strike back in Poland.
The voting system isn't crooked, everyone starts each election with zero votes and then the voters decide. Just put forward what you believe in and convince the most voters to back you. If you can't do that, take some responsibility for your own actions.
And Labour and Lib Dems aren't interchangeable. If they were, they'd be the same party not two very different ones.
FWIW my view is that the LibDems were wrong to target the seat and even now should ease off since it's really clear they're not in a position to win and they're simply increasing the chance that the Tories will hold the seat.
But to respond to your point, after talking to hundreds of voters over the weekend, it's clear that most voters don't see the parties as different in any significant way, and the appeals for tactical voting strengthen that perception (nobody asks for tactical votes from Reform UK, do they?). That might be a mistake - after all, we can all point to policy differences - but they elude the only vaguely engaged voter. After Starmer's move to the centre, and the general perception that the LibDems (and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists, what floating voters see is three similar parties squabbling, and it annoys them. In some cases it even means they don't vote for any of us.
I'm not actually arguing against tactical voting. But it would be good if the non-Tory parties agreed on some basic principles which respect the right of every party to make an effort:
1. The party that sees itself in the best position in win should use phrases like ". The Tories are [usual criticisms]. If you want to vote tactically to get them out, lend us your vote because ...". Don't use voodoo polls or disproportionate bar charts.
2. If a party can see that they're not in a position to win, they should argue for a positive vote. "You only get the chance to say how you think the country should be run every 4-5 years. Don't waste your vote on parochial and negative tactical voting, vote positively for us because..."
You'll still see parties who both think they can win adopting the first strategy, but put like that it avoids actually pissing everyone off, including the voters who we're all trying to impress.
"(and even, bizarrely, the Corbynite Greens) are centrists"
Corbyn's policies were, in general, popular with the majority of voters. Even the majority of Tory voters are happy with the idea of renationalising lots of essential things - electricity, rail, water. Green policy is radical, that's why I support them, but the "mainstream" idea of where the centre is policy wise is dead off imho.
I don't know the Green Party in Beds, they may be an actual centrist local branch (I consider my branch here in Herts quite centrist). I know lots of Greens in Tory areas tend to be on the pragmatic / conservationist side of the general green movement, versus the more radical wings amongst younger Greens and those from the cities.
Yes, once you got away from the identity politics stuff, a lot of Corbyn's more more traditional politics (nationalisation, what the state spends its money on, etc) were popular. What they were not were credible. People liked them, but didn't believe the money raised by taxing other people would pay for them. So they didn't vote for them.
More people voted Labour in 2017 than at any other time this Century
Fair: OK, should have said "so they voted for the other party" - because in my view the single biggest thing driving the huge Conservative votes in 2017 and 2019 was alarm at Labour policies (I continue to stick to the view that by far the biggest factor in the size of the Conservative vote is how left-wing Labour are: the further left Labour are, the bigger the Tory vote.)
This is a much more interesting Biden quote from that article:
it would be a mistake … for Israel to occupy … Gaza again,” Biden added. “But going in but taking out the extremists — the Hezbollah is up north but Hamas down south — is a necessary requirement.
Biden advocating an invasion of Lebanon (even if he might be right from an Israeli defence point of view) is hardly likely to ease tensions in Northern Israel.
I also suspect he wouldn’t have said it if it hadn’t already been discussed
Edit: rereading it, the “is” is critical. It makes it a statement of fact - equating Hamas to Hezbollah - rather than a suggestion that taking out both is warranted. But it does lay the groundwork for a future northern incursion
This is the thing, I don't think the equating is unjustified. Nor that Hezbollah are not a threat. Just seemed a bit daft for the US president to raise tensions in that way before the Israelis are ready to do whatever they decide.
Perhaps they have already decided.
Hezbollah is I think far more formidable than Hamas, estimated by the USA to be receiving $700 billion per annum from Iran back in 2018, and $100 million per annum back in 2005.
That's why I don't see a long-term way out of this that will hold; it is in the interest of some actors in the region, who also place a low value of human life of their own side or the other side, to maintain the conflict.
That is another version of the point made for half a century that Arab Governments had an interest in keeping Palestinian refugees, or 'refugees' depending on your view, stateless and in camps.
I'd say that this will only be resolved when most of the Middle East is no longer a basket case. I have no idea how that would happen. A significantly declining birth rate is perhaps a small sign.
Dr. Foxy, people, under PR, can indeed vote for what they want. And then have no guarantee of getting it if their chosen party trades away their preferred policy in coalition negotiations.
In general people don't care about detailed policies. People don't read manifestos. I suspect that it is rare that a voter would agree with every policy in a manifesto if they cared to read it. There are typically dozens of policies.
People vote for a leader that they approve of and has a positive slogan and demeanour, not detailed policies.
Coalitions represent a majority of electors views, rather than the minority elected dictatorships we have to endure under FPTP.
That is clearly rubbish. The idea that a coalition is simply combining the votes of all those who voted for both parties is an assumption that cannot be made. The only thingh a coalition can be said to represent is the compromise views of the party leaders and, initially at least, the majority of the whipped views of the MPs.
Mr. grss, coalitions are possible but highly unlikely under FPTP. Under PR, leaders can also change. And while coalitions might make drastic changes less likely, it also facilitates a new coalition forming, altering the government composition due not to electoral results but the preference of political parties.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
Are you saying that FPTP doesn't empower political parties? Because I see the opposite. If we had PR we would arguably have 5 parties that could be part of a government - Tories, Labour, LDs, Greens and whatever far right party Farage leads. That would weaken the Tories and Labour - the main parties of government.
PR does also empowers voters because they can actually pick political parties they agree with rather than the least worst option who can win. Take me - I hate the LDs, but I hate them less than the Tories, so in my seat I felt I had to vote LD to kick out a Tory. That breeds resentment with our political system. If I not only knew I could vote Green but that it could actually lead to more Green representation in parliament - Greens who I know would push policies I agreed with (even if they do have to do some horse trading), then I'd be much happier with our system.
You talk about parties negotiating as if that is a negative or voters dislike it. I think most people understand that lots of people disagree with them and whilst they have a preferred policy preference, some meeting in the middle is fine. The lack of that in our FPTP system leads parties to only talking and negotiating within themselves.
Any system that involves picking between political parties rather than between individual candidates is anathema to me. To repeat my oft heard mantra on here (sorry folks) we should be doing all we can to reduce the power of political parties over MPs not increase it. If you want a syatem that allows us to pick between candidates then great. I can go for that (which is why I was in favour of AV) but any system that has us picking betwen parties any more than we do now is a big leap in the wrong direction.
If you give seats to parties based on 'party share' the you are allowing parties to claim they own the votes rather than the MPs doing so. What price then crossing the floor or rebelling against your own party?
I can see the reasoning of that, and again would be willing to do something that combines both - you could take a model similar to how the GLA and Germany works which (in my limited understanding) uses STV for regional elections and then has a PR top up afterwards. That, in my view, combines the best of both.
I don't necessarily see the need for weak parties inherently - I think weak parties are good in a system where parties alienate the electorate so they aren't engaging in party politics (like now). In a world more like the past, where party membership and union membership was higher, I think political parties are good vehicles for collective political will (like how labour unions are good for the collective political will of workers). Even if we had a system that banned parties and only had individuals standing in individualised seats - people would form governing and opposition coalitions based on their policy agreements and de facto parties would emerge.
No one is talking about banning parties (well I'm not anyway) but we do need to massively reduce their power over MPs. Hence my assertion that all votes in Parliament should be free votes.
That would make any form of national representative democracy impossible, not to mention skewing the system to the worst sort of pork-barrelling and NIMBYism, as the only way candidates could demonstrate results would be on purely local issues.
No whipping means no party manifestoes - because how do you enforce them, unless you have brutally severe selection processes weeding out all but the robots who don't need whipping, or some form of licenced bribery to encourage voting the 'right way'?
Whipping came about, as parties did - they are intrinsic to each other - not because of evil machinations but because it is the most effective means of ensuring that like-minded people can get their policies implemented. Originally that was like-minded people in parliament but it works just as well as an implicit contract between voters and their party of choice: and most voters *do* vote for a party, or even for a prime minister. Ignoring that reality in favour of constitutional theory gets us nowhere.
Comments
If he was “sacked” for producing it himself I’d be the first to defend his defend his right to produce that image on his own Twitter, assuming his contract doesn’t say that the Guardian owns it.
Corbyn's policies were, in general, popular with the majority of voters. Even the majority of Tory voters are happy with the idea of renationalising lots of essential things - electricity, rail, water. Green policy is radical, that's why I support them, but the "mainstream" idea of where the centre is policy wise is dead off imho.
I don't know the Green Party in Beds, they may be an actual centrist local branch (I consider my branch here in Herts quite centrist). I know lots of Greens in Tory areas tend to be on the pragmatic / conservationist side of the general green movement, versus the more radical wings amongst younger Greens and those from the cities.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
Under PR systems, or even AV, voters can vote for what they actually want rather than be forced to choose between parties that they don't support.
Dr. Foxy, people, under PR, can indeed vote for what they want. And then have no guarantee of getting it if their chosen party trades away their preferred policy in coalition negotiations.
Jessie Hoskin is herself a Momentum bod who joined in the Corbyn wave 8 years ago.
eg https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/20/momentum-kids-single-parents-politics
Is this symptomatic of Momentum leaving?
We have seen this with Sunak. Sunak has ditched many policies in the Tory manifesto he was elected on and suggested many policies that were nowhere to be seen within it. That he has a stonking parliamentary majority to do that with little pushback is a weakness of FPTP. In a PR / coalition system, that would be less possible as the strength of other parties by their electoral mandates would be able to withdraw their votes in such a scenario if they wished.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/12/inside-the-taliban-luxury-hotel-afghanistan-intercontinental-kabul?utm_term=652a58a5f5a4a53fe7e253dd5c935824&utm_campaign=TheLongRead&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=longread_email
It could be worse, perhaps.
The consequence of PR is to shift power from the electorate to party politics. I can understand the superficial appeal (no need for tactical voting, just consider the party you like most and back it) but the more important difference is that once your vote is banked parties can happily jettison whatever drew your support. Indeed, the system's designed to encourage this through coalitions.
The United States has 15.28 CCTV cameras every 100 individuals, followed by China with 14.36 and the United Kingdom with 7.5. Other top 10 countries include Germany with 6.27 cameras per 100 individuals, Netherlands 5.8, Australia 4, Japan 2.72, France 2.46 and South Korea 1.99.
https://aithority.com/news/top-10-countries-and-cities-by-number-of-cctv-cameras/
Those numbers look about right to me.
Don’t carry cash? Don’t worry, 1,000 Big Issue sellers now accept contactless payments
Two-thirds of Big Issue sellers now accept contactless payments, and all 1,500 will by the end of this year.
https://www.bigissue.com/news/no-spare-change-two-thirds-of-big-issue-sellers-now-accept-contactless-payments/
I can’t know his intent, and won’t comment on or assume it, but that’s what everyone else saw: the link between the assumed access damage and him being Shylock. He ought to have seen that, or certainly twigged once the editor flagged it.
Note, I am not someone who called for him to be sacked or disciplined for the cartoon. And I never would as it would make me a hypocrite vs other cases. All I saying is that the controversy was predictable.
In fact - google - there are around 3,500 BI vendors so the plan is/was for half of them to be able to take cards by YE22.
But as I have said at length, I don’t personally think this seat was ever on for them.
But I'm not a Lab insider.
Not quite as bright here today. Yet, anyway.
I’ve been one of those supporters of a ‘better’ voting system pretty well ever since I could vote, and until recently the tide seemed to be flowing, admittedly rather slowly, in a positive direction. However the last two or three governments seem to have stopped, and indeed reversed that process, ever since, perhaps coincidentally, the AV referendum!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-16/why-the-voice-failed/102978962?fbclid=IwAR0s02Ul8zHv_t7p4Xz5PGpiZRT5iCSRvrHEx5d4Jobe8LLZARycnOg3Ghs
Encouragingly many seem to be eschewing the "racist thickos cost us a referendum for something we didn't explain properly" (notable exception, a Professor) which so poisoned the UK's post-Brexit vote discussion. And led to the Johnson "administration" (sic).
PR does also empowers voters because they can actually pick political parties they agree with rather than the least worst option who can win. Take me - I hate the LDs, but I hate them less than the Tories, so in my seat I felt I had to vote LD to kick out a Tory. That breeds resentment with our political system. If I not only knew I could vote Green but that it could actually lead to more Green representation in parliament - Greens who I know would push policies I agreed with (even if they do have to do some horse trading), then I'd be much happier with our system.
You talk about parties negotiating as if that is a negative or voters dislike it. I think most people understand that lots of people disagree with them and whilst they have a preferred policy preference, some meeting in the middle is fine. The lack of that in our FPTP system leads parties to only talking and negotiating within themselves.
Fair play to HSBC and others but they've gone out of their way to provide banking services for the homeless.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/66858169
https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/what-should-worry-labour-in-the-polls
In it, they note, as I have previously (https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/01/24/mrp-election-modelling-how-useful-is-it-outside-of-an-election-period/) that tactical voting isn't showing up in mid-term MRPs.
I think this is a symptom of mid-term polling not being of great use. I think people say how they would like to vote rather than how they will. I expect the Lib Dem vote to rise.
Anyway, the week in polls piece says:
Or take the most recent Survation MRP for Greenpeace. By my calculations, it shows that there would be 64 seats won by the Conservatives in England where the combined Labour and Lib Dem vote would be higher than the Conservative share and also where there would be 15 points or less between the Labour and Lib Dem share (i.e. where there wouldn’t be a big third party tactical squeeze). That would be up from 41 at the 2019 general election.
That's not actually out of the question. In 1992, the Labour and Lib Dem vote was greater than the Conservative vote in 106 of the 336 seats won by the Tories. In 1997, it actually increased to 127 despite the Tories winning only 165 seats. That's what happens when a party loses a lot of votes.
But, their votes aren’t very important to Labour.
What’s generally not in the US, is municipal CCTV and traffic cameras, but pretty much every business has cameras everywhere.
If you give seats to parties based on 'party share' the you are allowing parties to claim they own the votes rather than the MPs doing so. What price then crossing the floor or rebelling against your own party?
I'll be interested in the details of this Labour plan for modern garden cities. If the idea is just send it out to developers on current specs, it is going to be awful - huge developments of new builds that will last a decade if we're lucky. If Labour do it seriously and put proper specs on things - solar, insulation, maybe even limit the average car per home design and aim to have things build in line with the idea of walkable cities - then it could be great.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/16/solar-powered-off-road-car-stella-terra-finishes-620-mile-test-drive-across-north-africa
Perhaps better suited to sunny Sahara than grey England, but nonetheless a 1000km range.
But, most changes to the system are driven by hope of gaining electoral advantage.
Forget shopping etc for a minute. How many people live within walking distance of their work?
I don't necessarily see the need for weak parties inherently - I think weak parties are good in a system where parties alienate the electorate so they aren't engaging in party politics (like now). In a world more like the past, where party membership and union membership was higher, I think political parties are good vehicles for collective political will (like how labour unions are good for the collective political will of workers). Even if we had a system that banned parties and only had individuals standing in individualised seats - people would form governing and opposition coalitions based on their policy agreements and de facto parties would emerge.
First sentence. Moral equivalence at its worst.
It’s often said that Labour chose the wrong Miliband as leader.
Perhaps there isn’t a right Miliband.
Quote - David Miliband @DMiliband·
Horrific violence that violates fundamental norms of humanity has claimed the lives of over 1,200 in Israel and 1,400 Palestinians, including 447 children.
The way that war is conducted matters. The IRC is calling on the international community to ensure the following: (1/8)
https://x.com/DXW_KC/status/1713821166853349603?s=20
Also interestingly he says that the people of Gaza have nothing to do with Hamas' act.
Official results page, posted by @DoubleCarpet on the last thread.
In our case we had a house that audibly creaked in windy weather, with cracking plaster on various walls and as we discovered several years after buying it, empty cavity walls where Barratts had "forgotten" to install insulation. On every house they built. To say nothing about the garden made from rubble etc etc etc.
House prices have gone bonkers, yet the housebuilders construct the cheapest possible crap. This is the british problem in full effect - crap product at top money.
The Single Transferable Vote system - which the Liberals were introducing ages ago, only for the process to be cancelled because of the First World War - gives far more power to individual voters, to individual candidates and particular policies.
And political parties become much less important. They lose control once individuals can come together over single issues.
The is why control freaks like Sunek and Starmer are opposed to electoral reform. Their objective is to be tinpot dictators.
The values of our culture are "I want it NOW", rather than "let's spend now for the future benefits".
Why do people in older houses (yes I know you have an unusual situation - most eg 1930s semis or 1980ss 3-beds are not listed) do not invest in their properties to cut their heating bills by half?
It's a very small minority who do the investment.
To achieve your ideals we would have to ban political parties and consequentially it would become very difficult to know what each candidate stood for. Forming a government might be a tad tricky too.
I also think every vote should be a free vote and that whipping is bad - seems like you would like the Green Party of England and Wales which takes that position on how their elected members vote (sometimes to the dismay of its members)
PiS ahead of the exit poll right now.
I do not regard them as morally equivalent.
Do you?
The Pro-Palestinian ones are clearly very aggressive, seemingly filled with hate. Instances where they've seen someone on the other side and have gone after them. Also cases where they are shouting incredibly offensive chants - I believe "gas the Jews" was shouted outside the Sydney Opera House, for shame.
The Pro-Israeli demonstrations have, from what I've seen, been very quiet and dignified instances. Often vigils more than demonstrations. No one is shouting and you don't fear that one of them is going to suddenly attack someone else.
I think the Jews have far more to fear right now and I hope that if it comes to it that I would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them to protect them.
Power to the People is what I say - @148grss are you with me!
https://wybory.gov.pl/sejmsenat2023/en
I have absolutely no idea how to interpret this data.
It seems like they'll be counting for a couple of days but I don't know how long it'll be until there's enough to make a confident projection.
People vote for a leader that they approve of and has a positive slogan and demeanour, not detailed policies.
Coalitions represent a majority of electors views, rather than the minority elected dictatorships we have to endure under FPTP.
Hubris is a bitch
I think the deaths of any civilians are equally important, yes. Israel has stated specifically that they are going for a disproportionate response to the attack by Hamas, which is unacceptable.
In terms of distance to work - 2/3rd of all commutes are under 6 miles, a third under 3 miles. A 30 minute cycle or 15 minute cycle.
The majority of Palestinian refugees in Jordan (the largest single diaspora) are fully naturalised citizens. Even Egypt, which has been exceedingly reluctant to accept refugees, has something like 50k citizens of Palestinian origin.
There's also the fact that the deep rooted attachment to the "right of return" makes refugees reluctant to pursue alternate citizenship.
We are, of course, partly, and unwittingly responsible for this mess, having created a separate Palestinian citizenship in the first place as well as encouraging aspirations for a Jewish state in the region.
That's more than the US defence budget I think.
No whipping means no party manifestoes - because how do you enforce them, unless you have brutally severe selection processes weeding out all but the robots who don't need whipping, or some form of licenced bribery to encourage voting the 'right way'?
Whipping came about, as parties did - they are intrinsic to each other - not because of evil machinations but because it is the most effective means of ensuring that like-minded people can get their policies implemented. Originally that was like-minded people in parliament but it works just as well as an implicit contract between voters and their party of choice: and most voters *do* vote for a party, or even for a prime minister. Ignoring that reality in favour of constitutional theory gets us nowhere.
While searching for some random post via Vanilla's less than stellar search engine I came across this. Who said it and when did they say it.
"The EU army plans are already well advanced. It will happen within the next few years."