So, walking to the station from the car park this morning. A bloke ambling along next to another guy and carrying a massive bottle of rum, whilst swigging from it at 7am in the morning, with a scraggy beard and very bad teeth shouts over to me, "Hi Casino*!".
Never seen him before in my life, but he knows me. He's probably about my age. He was trying to talk to me, asking if I was going to London, to which I said "yes" to, but I was too confused and busy on emails on my phone plus trying to get the train that left in 3 minutes time. So I was awkward smiling and not really making eye contact with him.
Somewhat unsettling! And I still can't work it out now.
(*obviously it was my real name and not my pb handle)
Do you have a common name, like Mark or David?
Or Ethan or Jayden these days.
Noah. Loads of them around the younger age groups.
Don't think SKS will be in any rush to give up the voting system that gave him 411 seats on 34% if the national vote...
There is more to elections than maths. To win 411 seats out of the 630 you stand in involves (obviously) actually coming first in a bare knuckle and bloody cage fight which anyone can join on 411 separate occasions on the same day. Even to form a bare majority government you have to win 325 of them. And you lose even if you lose by one vote.
Anyone who can can do that in the face of the barbarian horde that makes up the UK voter deserves to win, completely regardless of what % vote they got in totality.
The case for FPTP is remarkably strong.
Horses win races even though the others run nearly as fast. You still have to win it
What a load of nonsense. There must be better arguments than this gibberish for FPTP.
I'm not sure there are any strong arguments for FPTP tbh.
The strongest argument is that pretty much every single time it provides a decisive result which enables a swift change of power and give stability that will last for the next 4-5 years. Labour are able to get on with changing the direction of the country from Friday, no need for weeks / months of horse trading to try and work out a government.
Lol @ stability.
The 2010 coalition was sorted in just a few days.
It was only really possible because the Tories and Lib Dems were so closely aligned as they were lead by somebody more left of usual of their party and Lib Dems right of usual. Also, the system still only allows 3 parties with any seats, not the 27 under some PR.
That is why I said Germany seems to work, you have this historic tie ups, where they are different but everybody knows they will definitely go together.
Allie Hodgkins-Brown @AllieHBNews · 1m Tuesday’s Daily EXPRESS: “So What’s It To Be…Tax Rises Or Cuts To Our Services?” #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
Managed to get through the whole election without answering these questions. The media too busy reporting on whether Farage had eaten an ice cream or gone for a pint or discussing endlessly the polling. Total failure.
The Conservatives should probably coupon the next election with Reform.
Reform could get out the way of the Con fights whilst the Conservatives stand down in Reform's seats and 74 Labour strongholds where Reform is second and the Tories didn't win in 2019.
It's on the list of things that aren't going to happen but it's more likely than Labour introducing any sort of electoral reform & it's still very very likely SKS is PM after the next election whatever anyone does.
That could provide perfect cover for the other parties doing the same, at least in Tory held seats.
It's effectively happened - & opposition parties are free to do whatever deals they like pre-election ! It'd put some Conservatives off voting Conservative, and not all the vote would transfer but it'd be a net benefit - mostly to the Conservatives. Aside from Llanelli Reform's Labour targets are.... quite a long way away and they're places the Tories have never won in living memory even during the Boris landslide.
For completeness here's the other Reform 2nds not facing Labour strongholds
Reform 2nd to Labour, Conservative held 2019 Whitehaven and Workington Kingston-Upon-Hull West and Haltemprice Wakefield & Rothwell Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor Leigh and Atherton Bridgend Telford Blackpool South Stoke on Trent central Thurrock Dover & Deal Spen Valley Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr Amber Valley
Reform 2nd to the Tories North East Cambridgeshire South Holland and the Deepings Maldon Brentwood and Ongar Louth and Horncastle Rayleigh and Wickford Isle of Wight East Hornchurch and Upminster
Reform 2nds to Labour (74)
Not sure which amused me more on that list, Hull West or Telford.
Rotherham this time, no Tory candidate and only just over a third of the Tory vote transferred to Reform - and that’s not dissimilar to what happened in areas where there was a Tory candidate! The remaining Tories don’t seem that keen to go shopping with Farage.
I think Farage would potentially buy it - it'd suit the Conservatives more though. Simon Clarke only had an 11.7% swing against him and almost held his seat with no Reform present. The Tories would be further back there if Reform had ran.
I don’t think so. He’s a wrecker who likes destroying stuff. He hoped to destroy the EU but had to settle for destroying our membership of it. Now he wants to destroy the Tories. He’s not in it for the hard graft of minority party leader, and either he sticks with it through to a denouement at the next GE, or walks away prior. Once he’s gone, it’ll fade away as UKIP did without him.
As it is, he’s going to find bobbing up and down trying to catch the speakers eye, from some uncomfortable seat at the back with his handful of colleagues, quite humiliating given the prominence he’s used to.
UKIP died on it's arse because it only got 1 MP in 2015, a one Douglas Carswell and obviously with Farage not winning it was never going to last. Brexit didn't win anything in 2019 so obviously that went pop. Winning 5 seats gives Reform a small base in parliament, next stop the Senedd elections where they'll probably do alright. I think this latest incarnation will stick around longer than people here think.
The last thing I thought would probably stick around longer than people generally thought on here/X was the Ukraine war and I was right on that.
We’ll see. Parliament is essentially run like the world’s biggest public school, and he’s a first year. He will hate it.
That's wrong because he will always be hot property for the interviewers in the lobby, and will get the odd q at pmqs. He's going to love it.
The Conservatives should probably coupon the next election with Reform.
Reform could get out the way of the Con fights whilst the Conservatives stand down in Reform's seats and 74 Labour strongholds where Reform is second and the Tories didn't win in 2019.
It's on the list of things that aren't going to happen but it's more likely than Labour introducing any sort of electoral reform & it's still very very likely SKS is PM after the next election whatever anyone does.
That could provide perfect cover for the other parties doing the same, at least in Tory held seats.
It's effectively happened - & opposition parties are free to do whatever deals they like pre-election ! It'd put some Conservatives off voting Conservative, and not all the vote would transfer but it'd be a net benefit - mostly to the Conservatives. Aside from Llanelli Reform's Labour targets are.... quite a long way away and they're places the Tories have never won in living memory even during the Boris landslide.
For completeness here's the other Reform 2nds not facing Labour strongholds
Reform 2nd to Labour, Conservative held 2019 Whitehaven and Workington Kingston-Upon-Hull West and Haltemprice Wakefield & Rothwell Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor Leigh and Atherton Bridgend Telford Blackpool South Stoke on Trent central Thurrock Dover & Deal Spen Valley Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr Amber Valley
Reform 2nd to the Tories North East Cambridgeshire South Holland and the Deepings Maldon Brentwood and Ongar Louth and Horncastle Rayleigh and Wickford Isle of Wight East Hornchurch and Upminster
Reform 2nds to Labour (74)
Not sure which amused me more on that list, Hull West or Telford.
Rotherham this time, no Tory candidate and only just over a third of the Tory vote transferred to Reform - and that’s not dissimilar to what happened in areas where there was a Tory candidate! The remaining Tories don’t seem that keen to go shopping with Farage.
I think Farage would potentially buy it - it'd suit the Conservatives more though. Simon Clarke only had an 11.7% swing against him and almost held his seat with no Reform present. The Tories would be further back there if Reform had ran.
I don’t think so. He’s a wrecker who likes destroying stuff. He hoped to destroy the EU but had to settle for destroying our membership of it. Now he wants to destroy the Tories. He’s not in it for the hard graft of minority party leader, and either he sticks with it through to a denouement at the next GE, or walks away prior. Once he’s gone, it’ll fade away as UKIP did without him.
As it is, he’s going to find bobbing up and down trying to catch the speakers eye, from some uncomfortable seat at the back with his handful of colleagues, quite humiliating given the prominence he’s used to.
UKIP died on it's arse because it only got 1 MP in 2015, a one Douglas Carswell and obviously with Farage not winning it was never going to last. Brexit didn't win anything in 2019 so obviously that went pop. Winning 5 seats gives Reform a small base in parliament, next stop the Senedd elections where they'll probably do alright. I think this latest incarnation will stick around longer than people here think.
The last thing I thought would probably stick around longer than people generally thought on here/X was the Ukraine war and I was right on that.
We’ll see. Parliament is essentially run like the world’s biggest public school, and he’s a first year. He will hate it.
Allie Hodgkins-Brown @AllieHBNews · 1m Tuesday’s Daily EXPRESS: “So What’s It To Be…Tax Rises Or Cuts To Our Services?” #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
Managed to get through the whole election without answering these questions. The media too busy reporting on whether Farage had eaten an ice cream or gone for a pint or discussing endlessly the polling. Total failure.
Of course had the Tories somehow pulled it off we know the answer would have been both. More cuts, more tax rises.
Allie Hodgkins-Brown @AllieHBNews · 1m Tuesday’s Daily EXPRESS: “So What’s It To Be…Tax Rises Or Cuts To Our Services?” #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
Managed to get through the whole election without answering these questions. The media too busy reporting on whether Farage had eaten an ice cream or gone for a pint or discussing endlessly the polling. Total failure.
Of course had the Tories somehow pulled it off we know the answer would have been both. More cuts, more tax rises.
Which is why they got so heavily smashed...
And why Labour's fall will be so precipitous, when Labour's answer is both.
The Conservatives should probably coupon the next election with Reform.
Reform could get out the way of the Con fights whilst the Conservatives stand down in Reform's seats and 74 Labour strongholds where Reform is second and the Tories didn't win in 2019.
It's on the list of things that aren't going to happen but it's more likely than Labour introducing any sort of electoral reform & it's still very very likely SKS is PM after the next election whatever anyone does.
That could provide perfect cover for the other parties doing the same, at least in Tory held seats.
It's effectively happened - & opposition parties are free to do whatever deals they like pre-election ! It'd put some Conservatives off voting Conservative, and not all the vote would transfer but it'd be a net benefit - mostly to the Conservatives. Aside from Llanelli Reform's Labour targets are.... quite a long way away and they're places the Tories have never won in living memory even during the Boris landslide.
For completeness here's the other Reform 2nds not facing Labour strongholds
Reform 2nd to Labour, Conservative held 2019 Whitehaven and Workington Kingston-Upon-Hull West and Haltemprice Wakefield & Rothwell Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor Leigh and Atherton Bridgend Telford Blackpool South Stoke on Trent central Thurrock Dover & Deal Spen Valley Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr Amber Valley
Reform 2nd to the Tories North East Cambridgeshire South Holland and the Deepings Maldon Brentwood and Ongar Louth and Horncastle Rayleigh and Wickford Isle of Wight East Hornchurch and Upminster
Reform 2nds to Labour (74)
Not sure which amused me more on that list, Hull West or Telford.
Rotherham this time, no Tory candidate and only just over a third of the Tory vote transferred to Reform - and that’s not dissimilar to what happened in areas where there was a Tory candidate! The remaining Tories don’t seem that keen to go shopping with Farage.
I think Farage would potentially buy it - it'd suit the Conservatives more though. Simon Clarke only had an 11.7% swing against him and almost held his seat with no Reform present. The Tories would be further back there if Reform had ran.
I don’t think so. He’s a wrecker who likes destroying stuff. He hoped to destroy the EU but had to settle for destroying our membership of it. Now he wants to destroy the Tories. He’s not in it for the hard graft of minority party leader, and either he sticks with it through to a denouement at the next GE, or walks away prior. Once he’s gone, it’ll fade away as UKIP did without him.
As it is, he’s going to find bobbing up and down trying to catch the speakers eye, from some uncomfortable seat at the back with his handful of colleagues, quite humiliating given the prominence he’s used to.
UKIP died on it's arse because it only got 1 MP in 2015, a one Douglas Carswell and obviously with Farage not winning it was never going to last. Brexit didn't win anything in 2019 so obviously that went pop. Winning 5 seats gives Reform a small base in parliament, next stop the Senedd elections where they'll probably do alright. I think this latest incarnation will stick around longer than people here think.
The last thing I thought would probably stick around longer than people generally thought on here/X was the Ukraine war and I was right on that.
We’ll see. Parliament is essentially run like the world’s biggest public school, and he’s a first year. He will hate it.
Allie Hodgkins-Brown @AllieHBNews · 1m Tuesday’s Daily EXPRESS: “So What’s It To Be…Tax Rises Or Cuts To Our Services?” #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
Managed to get through the whole election without answering these questions. The media too busy reporting on whether Farage had eaten an ice cream or gone for a pint or discussing endlessly the polling. Total failure.
Of course had the Tories somehow pulled it off we know the answer would have been both. More cuts, more tax rises.
Which is why they got so heavily smashed...
And why Labour's fall will be so precipitous, when Labour's answer is both.
They need to be brave, and get them in early. Reeves seems to be laying the groundwork already
Don't think SKS will be in any rush to give up the voting system that gave him 411 seats on 34% if the national vote...
There is more to elections than maths. To win 411 seats out of the 630 you stand in involves (obviously) actually coming first in a bare knuckle and bloody cage fight which anyone can join on 411 separate occasions on the same day. Even to form a bare majority government you have to win 325 of them. And you lose even if you lose by one vote.
Anyone who can can do that in the face of the barbarian horde that makes up the UK voter deserves to win, completely regardless of what % vote they got in totality.
The case for FPTP is remarkably strong.
Horses win races even though the others run nearly as fast. You still have to win it
I didn't say it isn't. Just that I can't see Labour changing anything while they on 411 seats.
It's 1997 all over again but this time there's not even the prospect Roy Jenkins doing a review (only for it to get kicked into the grass before being killed)
Don't think SKS will be in any rush to give up the voting system that gave him 411 seats on 34% if the national vote...
There is more to elections than maths. To win 411 seats out of the 630 you stand in involves (obviously) actually coming first in a bare knuckle and bloody cage fight which anyone can join on 411 separate occasions on the same day. Even to form a bare majority government you have to win 325 of them. And you lose even if you lose by one vote.
Anyone who can can do that in the face of the barbarian horde that makes up the UK voter deserves to win, completely regardless of what % vote they got in totality.
The case for FPTP is remarkably strong.
Horses win races even though the others run nearly as fast. You still have to win it
The horse race (or alternatively the school sports race) that is often given is nonsense. It is not comparable. In a horse race if you add another horse it doesn't slow down the fastest horse. It still wins. In an election adding another candidate takes votes away from other candidates and often disproportionately, so the winner can now comes second.
The Conservatives should probably coupon the next election with Reform.
Reform could get out the way of the Con fights whilst the Conservatives stand down in Reform's seats and 74 Labour strongholds where Reform is second and the Tories didn't win in 2019.
It's on the list of things that aren't going to happen but it's more likely than Labour introducing any sort of electoral reform & it's still very very likely SKS is PM after the next election whatever anyone does.
That could provide perfect cover for the other parties doing the same, at least in Tory held seats.
It's effectively happened - & opposition parties are free to do whatever deals they like pre-election ! It'd put some Conservatives off voting Conservative, and not all the vote would transfer but it'd be a net benefit - mostly to the Conservatives. Aside from Llanelli Reform's Labour targets are.... quite a long way away and they're places the Tories have never won in living memory even during the Boris landslide.
For completeness here's the other Reform 2nds not facing Labour strongholds
Reform 2nd to Labour, Conservative held 2019 Whitehaven and Workington Kingston-Upon-Hull West and Haltemprice Wakefield & Rothwell Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor Leigh and Atherton Bridgend Telford Blackpool South Stoke on Trent central Thurrock Dover & Deal Spen Valley Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr Amber Valley
Reform 2nd to the Tories North East Cambridgeshire South Holland and the Deepings Maldon Brentwood and Ongar Louth and Horncastle Rayleigh and Wickford Isle of Wight East Hornchurch and Upminster
Reform 2nds to Labour (74)
Not sure which amused me more on that list, Hull West or Telford.
Rotherham this time, no Tory candidate and only just over a third of the Tory vote transferred to Reform - and that’s not dissimilar to what happened in areas where there was a Tory candidate! The remaining Tories don’t seem that keen to go shopping with Farage.
Bizarrely, Reform only stood a paper candidate in Rotherham, given you'd have thought it should be a target.
Its the most bizarre thing. There are candidates like guy in Rotherham where there is no photo or bio even on the Reform UK website, and no information of any description issued to the local press.
At the declaration there is a guy on the stage and he got 11k votes
Imagine the fun if we had a proper voting system! Mr Cronly could have won. Already we had 11k people voting for a cypher, a person who literally just exists on a ballot paper.
In a democracy this is a Bad Thing. Because i can practically guarantee that almost all of those 11k people thought they were voting for Nigel Farage. And they weren't...
I was quite annoyed at that as the Reform guy was long odds, looked him up and apparently doesn't exist.*
*I know he does, just to all intents and purposes - no one had seen hide nor hare of him.
Leaving aside the whole "who stood where" thing, it highlights something that FPTP-like systems do pretty well, even if it depends on a ghost somewhere in the machine.
37% support, where everyone else hates you, loses. 34% support, where everyone else shrugs, wins.
There's more to public support than numbers of first choice votes.
If you want to kill some time and go down various intriguing rabbit holes, then the list of films on Rotten Tomatoes with 100% rating is fun. Local Hero is there, along with a film called Leave No Trace, which has stayed with me since I saw it in 2018 on a BAFTA screener.
So, walking to the station from the car park this morning. A bloke ambling along next to another guy and carrying a massive bottle of rum, whilst swigging from it at 7am in the morning, with a scraggy beard and very bad teeth shouts over to me, "Hi Casino*!".
Never seen him before in my life, but he knows me. He's probably about my age. He was trying to talk to me, asking if I was going to London, to which I said "yes" to, but I was too confused and busy on emails on my phone plus trying to get the train that left in 3 minutes time. So I was awkward smiling and not really making eye contact with him.
Somewhat unsettling! And I still can't work it out now.
(*obviously it was my real name and not my pb handle)
Do you have a common name, like Mark or David?
Nope. He knew me.
My wife's theory is he's someone I went to school or college with who's fallen on hard times.
These things come out the blue and can somewhat flummox you.
Yes, likely someone from your school you might have known for a while. I had an experience like that a few years back, someone from my school days recognised me in the Kings Stores and it took my a few minutes to work out who it was.
It's risible reading articles by people criticising FPTP just because they've done badly under that system at the latest election. (I've always been in favour of PR).
"Of all the smallish towns I have stayed in along France’s Rhône Valley, Tournon-sur-Rhône is my least favourite. It’s a loud town with an old expressway, Route Nationale 86, running through it.
Yet even in Tournon, on a boring Wednesday afternoon, there was an active social scene, a communal sense of needing to be, if not directly with other people, then at least near them. At one local café, friends, colleagues, couples, families came and went. Those who arrived alone, mostly older regulars, came to sit, watch the world and chat with waiters and fellow patrons. They were alone in name only. Each had their place, as I later found out when I realised I’d taken the corner seat of one regular. I offered to switch, but they declined with a smile, muttering something I hoped translated as “I may be set in my ways, but I’m not THAT set”.
I stayed at that café for three hours, and though I was alone I never felt lonely. I didn’t order much, but I never felt rushed. The French understand the value of sitting for a long time around others, while seemingly doing nothing."
Friend of mine, Chris Arnade. We are meeting in Cambodia/Vietnam this autumn
Leaving aside the whole "who stood where" thing, it highlights something that FPTP-like systems do pretty well, even if it depends on a ghost somewhere in the machine.
37% support, where everyone else hates you, loses. 34% support, where everyone else shrugs, wins.
There's more to public support than numbers of first choice votes.
The French two-round system does seem to be perfectly set up to reward the least disliked candidates rather than the most liked. Even more than FPTP. It’s essentially an 2-stage AV.
It's risible reading articles by people criticising FPTP just because they've done badly under that system at the latest election. (I've always been in favour of PR).
It's amusing - but on the other hand, if you want it ever to actually happen, then you need the cynical converts as well as the true believers to vote for it.
And remember the old one about more joy in heaven over the sinner that repenteth..
Don't think SKS will be in any rush to give up the voting system that gave him 411 seats on 34% if the national vote...
There is more to elections than maths. To win 411 seats out of the 630 you stand in involves (obviously) actually coming first in a bare knuckle and bloody cage fight which anyone can join on 411 separate occasions on the same day. Even to form a bare majority government you have to win 325 of them. And you lose even if you lose by one vote.
Anyone who can can do that in the face of the barbarian horde that makes up the UK voter deserves to win, completely regardless of what % vote they got in totality.
The case for FPTP is remarkably strong.
Horses win races even though the others run nearly as fast. You still have to win it
The horse race (or alternatively the school sports race) that is often given is nonsense. It is not comparable. In a horse race if you add another horse it doesn't slow down the fastest horse. It still wins. In an election adding another candidate takes votes away from other candidates and often disproportionately, so the winner now comes second.
That's because it's an electoral system not a tortured sport analogy. I've favoured multi member STV for a while now. With larger constituencies electing between 3 and 5 MP's. Still think Labour would have come close to a majority even on 34% by virtue of being relatively transfer friendly from Greens, LD's, diverse Lefties and in Scotland. Reform would have got more, as they ought. But suffered from no transfers.
It's risible reading articles by people criticising FPTP just because they've done badly under that system at the latest election. (I've always been in favour of PR).
400000 who were not entitled to vote or were on the black economy?
More likely 400,000 people who didn't realize they needed to bring ID to the polling station.
Too dumb for the vote if that’s the case. It was all over the media, on the poll card itself and has been a thing for the previous council elections. At some point you have to ask should they be allowed the vote if they are not up to speed on something so basic?
It's a nonsense policy. Nevertheless it seems three quarters of the 400 000 turned away had ID but not deemed adequate for voting.
There's a real problem here bordering on a scandal, assuming the ID is genuine and people aren't deliberately impersonating someone else.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
400000 who were not entitled to vote or were on the black economy?
More likely 400,000 people who didn't realize they needed to bring ID to the polling station.
Too dumb for the vote if that’s the case. It was all over the media, on the poll card itself and has been a thing for the previous council elections. At some point you have to ask should they be allowed the vote if they are not up to speed on something so basic?
It's a nonsense policy. Nevertheless it seems three quarters of the 400 000 turned away had ID but not deemed adequate for voting.
There's a real problem bordering on a scandal here, assuming the ID is genuine and people aren't deliberately impersonating someone else.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
And the devil always makes work for idle jobsworths, as we saw in the lockdowns.
Leaving aside the whole "who stood where" thing, it highlights something that FPTP-like systems do pretty well, even if it depends on a ghost somewhere in the machine.
37% support, where everyone else hates you, loses. 34% support, where everyone else shrugs, wins.
There's more to public support than numbers of first choice votes.
"Euros 2024: England's semi-final referee Felix Zwayer served six-month match-fixing ban
Felix Zwayer, who will lead an all-German officiating team in England's semi-final against the Netherlands, also has a history with England star Jude Bellingham."
"In 2005, Zwayer was involved in the match fixing scandal which centered around 2. Bundesliga referee Robert Hoyzer, who took bribes to fix several matches which he officiated. Zwayer assisted him in a match and accepted a bribe of 300 euros to avoid critical scenes for Wuppertaler SV. In January 2005, he and three other high-ranking referees informed the DFB about Hoyzer's match fixing. He was subsequently banned from refereeing for 6 months, a suspension that was kept secret for several years until the German newspaper Die Zeit published a secret file from the German FA."
Don't think SKS will be in any rush to give up the voting system that gave him 411 seats on 34% if the national vote...
There is more to elections than maths. To win 411 seats out of the 630 you stand in involves (obviously) actually coming first in a bare knuckle and bloody cage fight which anyone can join on 411 separate occasions on the same day. Even to form a bare majority government you have to win 325 of them. And you lose even if you lose by one vote.
Anyone who can can do that in the face of the barbarian horde that makes up the UK voter deserves to win, completely regardless of what % vote they got in totality.
The case for FPTP is remarkably strong.
Horses win races even though the others run nearly as fast. You still have to win it
The horse race (or alternatively the school sports race) that is often given is nonsense. It is not comparable. In a horse race if you add another horse it doesn't slow down the fastest horse. It still wins. In an election adding another candidate takes votes away from other candidates and often disproportionately, so the winner now comes second.
That's because it's an electoral system not a tortured sport analogy. I've favoured multi member STV for a while now. With larger constituencies electing between 3 and 5 MP's. Still think Labour would have come close to a majority even on 34% by virtue of being relatively transfer friendly from Greens, LD's, diverse Lefties and in Scotland. Reform would have got more, as they ought. But suffered from no transfers.
3-5 isn't sufficient to give a proportional result. And with STV you get the nonsense of the number of seats a party wins being dependent on how many candidates they put up.
8 member seats. Elected under D'Hondt. Local party members decide on the lists.
Proportional. One vote per person. Straightforward to count. Result before breakfast. Essentially a minimum threshold to get representation. Maintains a level of local(ish) representation.
Not all but under AV most Reform voters would have given the Tories their second preferences and vice versa and the Tories would probably have got over 200 seats as a result and Reform 50-100. The LDs would also likely have got over 100 MPs with second preferences from both the Tories and Labour and the Greens up to 50 with LD and Labour preferences.
Labour would have lost significant numbers of seats it won though and likely ended up with only a narrow majority. SNP may have done even worse and been near wiped out with Unionists preferencing each other.
Who would have thought 13 years ago the biggest winner of FPTP beating AV in the 2011 referendum would be Labour?
400000 who were not entitled to vote or were on the black economy?
More likely 400,000 people who didn't realize they needed to bring ID to the polling station.
Too dumb for the vote if that’s the case. It was all over the media, on the poll card itself and has been a thing for the previous council elections. At some point you have to ask should they be allowed the vote if they are not up to speed on something so basic?
It's a nonsense policy. Nevertheless it seems three quarters of the 400 000 turned away had ID but not deemed adequate for voting.
There's a real problem here bordering on a scandal, assuming the ID is genuine and people aren't deliberately impersonating someone else.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
A judgement call by the person at the desk as to whether you look like the photo. That's bollocks.
If you want to kill some time and go down various intriguing rabbit holes, then the list of films on Rotten Tomatoes with 100% rating is fun. Local Hero is there, along with a film called Leave No Trace, which has stayed with me since I saw it in 2018 on a BAFTA screener.
There are some great films on there but there seems to be something wrong with a list that features “Tokyo Story”, “Oliver Twist, and “Au Hasard Balthazar” with “Lady Boss: the Jackie Collins Story”, “Creep 2”, and “Gay Chorus Deep South”.
Not all but under AV most Reform voters would have given the Tories their second preferences and vice versa and the Tories would probably have got over 200 seats as a result and Reform 50-100. The LDs would also likely have got over 100 MPs with second preferences from both the Tories and Labour and the Greens up to 50 with LD and Labour preferences.
Labour would have lost significant numbers of seats it won though and likely ended up with only a narrow majority. SNP may have done even worse and been near wiped out with Unionists preferencing each other.
Who would have thought 13 years ago the biggest winner of FPTP beating AV in the 2011 referendum would be Labour?
Your party should join us in calling for a fair. Voting system.
400000 who were not entitled to vote or were on the black economy?
More likely 400,000 people who didn't realize they needed to bring ID to the polling station.
Too dumb for the vote if that’s the case. It was all over the media, on the poll card itself and has been a thing for the previous council elections. At some point you have to ask should they be allowed the vote if they are not up to speed on something so basic?
It's a nonsense policy. Nevertheless it seems three quarters of the 400 000 turned away had ID but not deemed adequate for voting.
There's a real problem here bordering on a scandal, assuming the ID is genuine and people aren't deliberately impersonating someone else.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
Telling people that an issue isn't really an issue, and if it is it isn't important, and if it's still a problem it must be your fault because you are a moron, or too poor or thick to comply, has resulted in a record Tory defeat. This wizard wheeze is a microcosm which sums up Tory rule perfectly. Too clever by half policies implemented for purely electoral advantage. Treating folk like imbeciles.
400000 who were not entitled to vote or were on the black economy?
More likely 400,000 people who didn't realize they needed to bring ID to the polling station.
Too dumb for the vote if that’s the case. It was all over the media, on the poll card itself and has been a thing for the previous council elections. At some point you have to ask should they be allowed the vote if they are not up to speed on something so basic?
It's a nonsense policy. Nevertheless it seems three quarters of the 400 000 turned away had ID but not deemed adequate for voting.
There's a real problem bordering on a scandal here, assuming the ID is genuine and people aren't deliberately impersonating someone else.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
And the devil always makes work for idle jobsworths, as we saw in the lockdowns.
The ID that people actually have isn't fit for this purpose. If you insist on paper ID for voting it has to be a universal and compulsory document that links formally to the individual on the voters roll.
Fetterman goes all in backing Biden to be nominee on BBC News clip.
Ship of fools.
Well done Fetterman, the only Dem candidate doing any better than Biden v Trump in most polls is Michelle Obama who refuses to run. Harris gets trounced by Trump in the most recent poll.
Biden has beaten Trump already, he was right, if his internal opponents want to remove him they can challenge him at the Democratic convention, otherwise he is going nowhere. He also knows he has the vast majority of the delegates behind him and can crush his enemies in the party in Chicago if required after which Democratic royalty like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Kennedy III will make speeches rallying the faithful to Biden
Not all but under AV most Reform voters would have given the Tories their second preferences and vice versa and the Tories would probably have got over 200 seats as a result and Reform 50-100. The LDs would also likely have got over 100 MPs with second preferences from both the Tories and Labour and the Greens up to 50 with LD and Labour preferences.
Labour would have lost significant numbers of seats it won though and likely ended up with only a narrow majority. SNP may have done even worse and been near wiped out with Unionists preferencing each other.
Who would have thought 13 years ago the biggest winner of FPTP beating AV in the 2011 referendum would be Labour?
Tories should have supported AV in 2011. It's very similar to the system in Australia, and the centre-right doesn't have any problems winning elections there on a regular basis.
The only argument in favour of FPTP that I like is, loosely speaking, the one advanced by Karl Popper: that the important thing in a democracy is to be able to kick out bad governments, rather than to elect what you hope or believe will be optimally good ones.
It's easy to say "the government should reflect the will of the people", but it's not clear that even the best electoral systems can do that, or that the "will of the people" is a meaningful concept. In fact, the belief that the government really does reflect the will of the people can be quite dangerous, because it's a lot harder to insist on checks and balances if what is being checked and balanced is the will of the people.
Instead, FPTP governments are temporary arrangements that get to put forward some kind of programme or manifesto, and then get to attempt to deliver it. The public may, if we're honest, not be paying very close attention to exactly what happens next, but that doesn't matter: their only real decision is whether to vote the government out, and they'll take that decision based on whether things seem to be going well or badly in the round. The Tories are out in 2024 because, even if you had not read, listened to, or watched a single iota of political news in the last 5 years, you'd still know that things are going badly.
Governments can fail because their manifestoes contain bad ideas that produce bad outcomes, or good ideas that they fail to implement, or simply because of bad luck, but each of these factors help to protect us from the worst-case scenario of a bad government that goes on indefinitely. PR, in contrast, can frustrate this: a party can govern badly, lose votes and vote share, and still get back into government via a coalition. Yes, PR avoids lop-sided and disproportionate majorities, but it also avoids lop-sided and disproportionate defeats, of the kinds of the Lib Dems got in 2015 and the Tories and the SNP got in 2024. FPTP, for all of its problems, remains a pretty good way to send a message to a political party, provided that message is "f**k you". And, it turns out, if you can only ever send one message then that's probably the one that you want.
400000 who were not entitled to vote or were on the black economy?
More likely 400,000 people who didn't realize they needed to bring ID to the polling station.
Too dumb for the vote if that’s the case. It was all over the media, on the poll card itself and has been a thing for the previous council elections. At some point you have to ask should they be allowed the vote if they are not up to speed on something so basic?
It's a nonsense policy. Nevertheless it seems three quarters of the 400 000 turned away had ID but not deemed adequate for voting.
There's a real problem here bordering on a scandal, assuming the ID is genuine and people aren't deliberately impersonating someone else.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
A judgement call by the person at the desk as to whether you look like the photo. That's bollocks.
We should have STV for local elections though. Stop the one-party fiefdoms in places like Tower Hamlets that encourage corruption.
I think the Australian electoral system is probably the least-worst available. Similar to FPTP but candidates needs to get 50% approval in each constituency.
Don't think SKS will be in any rush to give up the voting system that gave him 411 seats on 34% if the national vote...
There is more to elections than maths. To win 411 seats out of the 630 you stand in involves (obviously) actually coming first in a bare knuckle and bloody cage fight which anyone can join on 411 separate occasions on the same day. Even to form a bare majority government you have to win 325 of them. And you lose even if you lose by one vote.
Anyone who can can do that in the face of the barbarian horde that makes up the UK voter deserves to win, completely regardless of what % vote they got in totality.
The case for FPTP is remarkably strong.
Horses win races even though the others run nearly as fast. You still have to win it
The horse race (or alternatively the school sports race) that is often given is nonsense. It is not comparable. In a horse race if you add another horse it doesn't slow down the fastest horse. It still wins. In an election adding another candidate takes votes away from other candidates and often disproportionately, so the winner now comes second.
That's because it's an electoral system not a tortured sport analogy. I've favoured multi member STV for a while now. With larger constituencies electing between 3 and 5 MP's. Still think Labour would have come close to a majority even on 34% by virtue of being relatively transfer friendly from Greens, LD's, diverse Lefties and in Scotland. Reform would have got more, as they ought. But suffered from no transfers.
3-5 isn't sufficient to give a proportional result. And with STV you get the nonsense of the number of seats a party wins being dependent on how many candidates they put up.
8 member seats. Elected under D'Hondt. Local party members decide on the lists.
Proportional. One vote per person. Straightforward to count. Result before breakfast. Essentially a minimum threshold to get representation. Maintains a level of local(ish) representation.
But I don't want a purely proportional result. I want a choice of different flavours of Labour, for example, to vote for. I certainly don't want D'Hondt. And I wouldn't trust anyone weird enough to be a Party member to be ordering my lists for me. Also. And I think this is vital, I want a choice of MP if I have a problem. If my MP is lazy, ineffective, or simply doesn't have any sympathy with my issue, to whom do I turn? You could reply, don't vote for them. But what if I already hadn't voted for them?
If you want to kill some time and go down various intriguing rabbit holes, then the list of films on Rotten Tomatoes with 100% rating is fun. Local Hero is there, along with a film called Leave No Trace, which has stayed with me since I saw it in 2018 on a BAFTA screener.
400000 who were not entitled to vote or were on the black economy?
More likely 400,000 people who didn't realize they needed to bring ID to the polling station.
Too dumb for the vote if that’s the case. It was all over the media, on the poll card itself and has been a thing for the previous council elections. At some point you have to ask should they be allowed the vote if they are not up to speed on something so basic?
It's a nonsense policy. Nevertheless it seems three quarters of the 400 000 turned away had ID but not deemed adequate for voting.
There's a real problem here bordering on a scandal, assuming the ID is genuine and people aren't deliberately impersonating someone else.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
A judgement call by the person at the desk as to whether you look like the photo. That's bollocks.
Is there any system for appeal on these grounds? Also. Name doesn't match name on roll. I presume that means recently married women in the main?
Does anyone know where to get the official Shadow Cabinet announcement?
It's not obviously on their website or twitter.
Here, mostly mirrors the last Cabinet apart from MPs replacing those defeated in the election and Cameron and Holden who resigned.
Main changes Mitchell Shadow Foreign Sec, Cartlidge Shadow Defence, Argar Shadow Justice, Hinds Shadow Education. Burghart becomes Shadow NI Sec too, Philp Shadow Leader of the House, Fuller Party chairman and Wright Shadow AG as he was once actual AG. Badenoch moves to Housing
I've started checking the MRPs to see how they fared. Now I thought Yougov would be pretty good but I've just come across an absolute embarrasment of a prediction, probably one of the worst single constituency predictions I've ever seen.
How on earth did they have Edinburgh West as "SNP by 9%"
Why change our perfectly functional electoral system when it works so well against that ghastly pipsqueak Farage?
The rules of first past the post are simple; Labour and Lib Dems read the rules, Reform didn't
The public also know to how to play the system.
And a system which awards around a hundred times the seats to one party which got less than two and a half times the votes of the other, clearly doesn’t deserve to be described as democratic.
Very low turnouts at the election. (These numbers include spoilt papers, without them the percentage will be very slightly lower).
"Manchester Rusholme 40.0% Leeds South 41.7% Kingston upon Hull East 42.2% Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney 42.7% Tipton and Wednesbury 42.9% Blackley and Middleton South 43.5% Birmingham Erdington 43.6% Birmingham Ladywood 43.7% Wolverhampton South East 43.7% Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North 43.9%"
Why change our perfectly functional electoral system when it works so well against that ghastly pipsqueak Farage?
The rules of first past the post are simple; Labour and Lib Dems read the rules, Reform didn't
You do realise Farage could win a future election with about 28% of the vote? Because Labour could probably have won a small overall majority with that type of share at this election, given they won a 174 seat majority with 33.7%. You need to think about future elections, not just the one that's taken place a few days ago.
And a system which awards around a hundred times the seats to one party which got less than two and a half times the votes of the other, clearly doesn’t deserve to be described as democratic.
Of course it is.
The votes in any seat determine that seat.
The votes in any other seat have no bearing. They belong to a different demos.
I've started checking the MRPs to see how they fared. Now I thought Yougov would be pretty good but I've just come across an absolute embarrasment of a prediction, probably one of the worst single constituency predictions I've ever seen.
How on earth did they have Edinburgh West as "SNP by 9%"
People called that one out at the time on here IIRC.
Don't think SKS will be in any rush to give up the voting system that gave him 411 seats on 34% if the national vote...
There is more to elections than maths. To win 411 seats out of the 630 you stand in involves (obviously) actually coming first in a bare knuckle and bloody cage fight which anyone can join on 411 separate occasions on the same day. Even to form a bare majority government you have to win 325 of them. And you lose even if you lose by one vote.
Anyone who can can do that in the face of the barbarian horde that makes up the UK voter deserves to win, completely regardless of what % vote they got in totality.
The case for FPTP is remarkably strong.
Horses win races even though the others run nearly as fast. You still have to win it
The horse race (or alternatively the school sports race) that is often given is nonsense. It is not comparable. In a horse race if you add another horse it doesn't slow down the fastest horse. It still wins. In an election adding another candidate takes votes away from other candidates and often disproportionately, so the winner now comes second.
That's because it's an electoral system not a tortured sport analogy. I've favoured multi member STV for a while now. With larger constituencies electing between 3 and 5 MP's. Still think Labour would have come close to a majority even on 34% by virtue of being relatively transfer friendly from Greens, LD's, diverse Lefties and in Scotland. Reform would have got more, as they ought. But suffered from no transfers.
3-5 isn't sufficient to give a proportional result. And with STV you get the nonsense of the number of seats a party wins being dependent on how many candidates they put up.
8 member seats. Elected under D'Hondt. Local party members decide on the lists.
Proportional. One vote per person. Straightforward to count. Result before breakfast. Essentially a minimum threshold to get representation. Maintains a level of local(ish) representation.
But I don't want a purely proportional result. I want a choice of different flavours of Labour, for example, to vote for. I certainly don't want D'Hondt. And I wouldn't trust anyone weird enough to be a Party member to be ordering my lists for me. Also. And I think this is vital, I want a choice of MP if I have a problem. If my MP is lazy, ineffective, or simply doesn't have any sympathy with my issue, to whom do I turn? You could reply, don't vote for them. But what if I already hadn't voted for them?
1. Whether an ordered list or an unordered list, the party members still choose who gets on the ballot. 2. If one MP is lazy, you'll have another seven you can try instead.
400000 who were not entitled to vote or were on the black economy?
More likely 400,000 people who didn't realize they needed to bring ID to the polling station.
Too dumb for the vote if that’s the case. It was all over the media, on the poll card itself and has been a thing for the previous council elections. At some point you have to ask should they be allowed the vote if they are not up to speed on something so basic?
It's a nonsense policy. Nevertheless it seems three quarters of the 400 000 turned away had ID but not deemed adequate for voting.
There's a real problem here bordering on a scandal, assuming the ID is genuine and people aren't deliberately impersonating someone else.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
A judgement call by the person at the desk as to whether you look like the photo. That's bollocks.
Is there any system for appeal on these grounds? Also. Name doesn't match name on roll. I presume that means recently married women in the main?
And by pure coincidence, women tend to be more left-leaning.
Does anyone know where to get the official Shadow Cabinet announcement?
It's not obviously on their website or twitter.
Here, mostly mirrors the last Cabinet apart from MPs replacing those defeated in the election and Cameron and Holden who resigned.
Main changes Mitchell Shadow Foreign Sec, Cartlidge Shadow Defence, Argar Shadow Justice, Hinds Shadow Education. Burghart becomes Shadow NI Sec too, Philp Shadow Leader of the House, Fuller Party chairman and Wright Shadow AG as he was once actual AG. Badenoch moves to Housing
She's lost Kruger so no doubt feeling rather raw this evening.
That smacks of the speech of someone who knows she's going to lose a leadership election and would rather carve out a position as 'saying the unsayable' within her party and lucrative gigs on the international 'anti-woke' circuit. Badenoch, for example, holds pretty similar views but would state them in far less provocative terms and be aiming to persuade those without strong views that she's right.
Does anyone know where to get the official Shadow Cabinet announcement?
It's not obviously on their website or twitter.
Here, mostly mirrors the last Cabinet apart from MPs replacing those defeated in the election and Cameron and Holden who resigned.
Main changes Mitchell Shadow Foreign Sec, Cartlidge Shadow Defence, Argar Shadow Justice, Hinds Shadow Education. Burghart becomes Shadow NI Sec too, Philp Shadow Leader of the House, Fuller Party chairman and Wright Shadow AG as he was once actual AG. Badenoch moves to Housing
She's not very good at her job. The announcement of the Queen's death was relayed to her by a journalist during a press conference and she said something like "Well, er, that happened". Can't find the video now.
Don't think SKS will be in any rush to give up the voting system that gave him 411 seats on 34% if the national vote...
There is more to elections than maths. To win 411 seats out of the 630 you stand in involves (obviously) actually coming first in a bare knuckle and bloody cage fight which anyone can join on 411 separate occasions on the same day. Even to form a bare majority government you have to win 325 of them. And you lose even if you lose by one vote.
Anyone who can can do that in the face of the barbarian horde that makes up the UK voter deserves to win, completely regardless of what % vote they got in totality.
The case for FPTP is remarkably strong.
Horses win races even though the others run nearly as fast. You still have to win it
The horse race (or alternatively the school sports race) that is often given is nonsense. It is not comparable. In a horse race if you add another horse it doesn't slow down the fastest horse. It still wins. In an election adding another candidate takes votes away from other candidates and often disproportionately, so the winner now comes second.
That's because it's an electoral system not a tortured sport analogy. I've favoured multi member STV for a while now. With larger constituencies electing between 3 and 5 MP's. Still think Labour would have come close to a majority even on 34% by virtue of being relatively transfer friendly from Greens, LD's, diverse Lefties and in Scotland. Reform would have got more, as they ought. But suffered from no transfers.
STV also ticks other boxes, by accident or design, which most Brits would think important.
Most obviously, the constituency link. Indeed, for urban areas, the boundaries for cities would be more sensible, as the boundary commission could take each of the major cities, make a constituency out of it coterminous with local government boundaries, and allocate the appropriate number of MPs. If the city shrank or grew, you could add or deduct an MP, rather than carving a bit off and attached to the countryside. Seats like Romsey where a corner of Southampton left over has been tacked on, wouldn’t exist. Away from cities it wouldn’t be so neat, but you could still make a better stab at sensible areas, aligned to counties, with the flexibility offered by multi-member seats but of varying size.
Then there’s the bar against fringe parties, which is inherent automatically because STB typically requires 15-25% of the vote in a multi-member seat to get any representation at all. We wouldn’t have the huge range of nutter parties that countries with pure PR often have.
Then there’s the single vote - while voters are able to number all the candidates in order, marking just a first preference would be acceptable, and could even be done with an X.
It's totally fine to defend your 'leader of the free world' candidates position based on how many times they've recently visited a neurologist. Three times. Not four. Not two. He says he remembers. Three times! Does Donald say how many? No!
Very low turnouts at the election. (These numbers include spoilt papers, without them the percentage will be very slightly lower).
"Manchester Rusholme 40.0% Leeds South 41.7% Kingston upon Hull East 42.2% Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney 42.7% Tipton and Wednesbury 42.9% Blackley and Middleton South 43.5% Birmingham Erdington 43.6% Birmingham Ladywood 43.7% Wolverhampton South East 43.7% Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North 43.9%"
Tim Farron (31061) got more votes than Doncaster North (31002), Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney (29922), Kingston upon Hull East (29816) and Manchester Rusholme (29033) total turnout.
Not all but under AV most Reform voters would have given the Tories their second preferences and vice versa and the Tories would probably have got over 200 seats as a result and Reform 50-100.
In different circumstances, maybe, but not this time. More Reform voters (marginally) would have gone for opposition parties than the Tories. And if Tories are willing to transfer to reform, how come the guy in Rotherham didn’t do much better?
It's totally fine to defend your 'leader of the free world' candidates position based on how many times they've recently visited a neurologist. Three times. Not four. Not two. He says he remembers. Three times! Does Donald say how many? No!
This is so terribly grim.
It's like some sort of cosmic joke intended to make Trump look good by comparison. Should have been nipped in the bud halfway through Biden's first term. Why does he want two terms? Mere posterity?
Apropos of nothing, Jimmy Carter is still alive. Terminally ill, but alive.
If I was managing the Dem convention next month I would have Jill Biden speaking on night 1, Bill Clinton night 2, Barack Obama on night 3 introduced by Michelle and Harris at the end of the night. I would then have Jimmy Carter record a message for the convention just before Biden came out to speak talking about honesty and integrity in politics and why Biden had it and Trump didn't as one of his last acts just before Biden came out to speak
If you want to kill some time and go down various intriguing rabbit holes, then the list of films on Rotten Tomatoes with 100% rating is fun. Local Hero is there, along with a film called Leave No Trace, which has stayed with me since I saw it in 2018 on a BAFTA screener.
So, walking to the station from the car park this morning. A bloke ambling along next to another guy and carrying a massive bottle of rum, whilst swigging from it at 7am in the morning, with a scraggy beard and very bad teeth shouts over to me, "Hi Casino*!".
Never seen him before in my life, but he knows me. He's probably about my age. He was trying to talk to me, asking if I was going to London, to which I said "yes" to, but I was too confused and busy on emails on my phone plus trying to get the train that left in 3 minutes time. So I was awkward smiling and not really making eye contact with him.
Somewhat unsettling! And I still can't work it out now.
(*obviously it was my real name and not my pb handle)
An encounter with your future self through a space time wormhole. Heed his warning.
She's not very good at her job. The announcement of the Queen's death was relayed to her by a journalist during a press conference and she said something like "Well, er, that happened". Can't find the video now.
Why change our perfectly functional electoral system when it works so well against that ghastly pipsqueak Farage?
The rules of first past the post are simple; Labour and Lib Dems read the rules, Reform didn't
You do realise Farage could win a future election with about 28% of the vote? Because Labour could probably have won a small overall majority with that type of share at this election, given they won a 174 seat majority with 33.7%. You need to think about future elections, not just the one that's taken place a few days ago.
He's very unlikely to, though. For the same reasons Corbyn couldn't win one with 40% or 32%. People aren't idiots and know how the system works and vote differently to keep out someone they hate.
If, for example, events mean Farage is the next Tory leader, he might bump the Tory vote up a bit by bringing over some Reform voters. But you can bet the Labour vote is going up too as Tories who hate Farage, leftists, Lib Dems and so on decide if they're in a Tory/Labour/Reform fight, Labour aren't so bad after all.
She's lost Kruger so no doubt feeling rather raw this evening.
That smacks of the speech of someone who knows she's going to lose a leadership election and would rather carve out a position as 'saying the unsayable' within her party and lucrative gigs on the international 'anti-woke' circuit. Badenoch, for example, holds pretty similar views but would state them in far less provocative terms and be aiming to persuade those without strong views that she's right.
The only argument in favour of FPTP that I like is, loosely speaking, the one advanced by Karl Popper: that the important thing in a democracy is to be able to kick out bad governments, rather than to elect what you hope or believe will be optimally good ones.
It's easy to say "the government should reflect the will of the people", but it's not clear that even the best electoral systems can do that, or that the "will of the people" is a meaningful concept. In fact, the belief that the government really does reflect the will of the people can be quite dangerous, because it's a lot harder to insist on checks and balances if what is being checked and balanced is the will of the people.
Instead, FPTP governments are temporary arrangements that get to put forward some kind of programme or manifesto, and then get to attempt to deliver it. The public may, if we're honest, not be paying very close attention to exactly what happens next, but that doesn't matter: their only real decision is whether to vote the government out, and they'll take that decision based on whether things seem to be going well or badly in the round. The Tories are out in 2024 because, even if you had not read, listened to, or watched a single iota of political news in the last 5 years, you'd still know that things are going badly.
Governments can fail because their manifestoes contain bad ideas that produce bad outcomes, or good ideas that they fail to implement, or simply because of bad luck, but each of these factors help to protect us from the worst-case scenario of a bad government that goes on indefinitely. PR, in contrast, can frustrate this: a party can govern badly, lose votes and vote share, and still get back into government via a coalition. Yes, PR avoids lop-sided and disproportionate majorities, but it also avoids lop-sided and disproportionate defeats, of the kinds of the Lib Dems got in 2015 and the Tories and the SNP got in 2024. FPTP, for all of its problems, remains a pretty good way to send a message to a political party, provided that message is "f**k you". And, it turns out, if you can only ever send one message then that's probably the one that you want.
Yes, but as we’ve just seen, it’s possible for two thirds of the voters to want to kick out a government but it could still win, and win massively, with just the other third of diehard supporters. It just depends on where they are, and how the other votes fall.
Indeed a very interesting question arising from Thursday’s election is this - apply a swing against Labour (uniform or proportional, as you please) until its majority is reduced to just ONE - how low would its vote share be? Yet still win majority power. I suspect the answer is quite shocking.
If you want to kill some time and go down various intriguing rabbit holes, then the list of films on Rotten Tomatoes with 100% rating is fun. Local Hero is there, along with a film called Leave No Trace, which has stayed with me since I saw it in 2018 on a BAFTA screener.
Not all but under AV most Reform voters would have given the Tories their second preferences and vice versa and the Tories would probably have got over 200 seats as a result and Reform 50-100.
In different circumstances, maybe, but not this time. More Reform voters (marginally) would have gone for opposition parties than the Tories. And if Tories are willing to transfer to reform, how come the guy in Rotherham didn’t do much better?
They wouldn't, the polls showed most Reform voters this time voted Conservative in 2019. Rotherham may have gone Reform with AV
If you want to kill some time and go down various intriguing rabbit holes, then the list of films on Rotten Tomatoes with 100% rating is fun. Local Hero is there, along with a film called Leave No Trace, which has stayed with me since I saw it in 2018 on a BAFTA screener.
Don't think SKS will be in any rush to give up the voting system that gave him 411 seats on 34% if the national vote...
There is more to elections than maths. To win 411 seats out of the 630 you stand in involves (obviously) actually coming first in a bare knuckle and bloody cage fight which anyone can join on 411 separate occasions on the same day. Even to form a bare majority government you have to win 325 of them. And you lose even if you lose by one vote.
Anyone who can can do that in the face of the barbarian horde that makes up the UK voter deserves to win, completely regardless of what % vote they got in totality.
The case for FPTP is remarkably strong.
Horses win races even though the others run nearly as fast. You still have to win it
The horse race (or alternatively the school sports race) that is often given is nonsense. It is not comparable. In a horse race if you add another horse it doesn't slow down the fastest horse. It still wins. In an election adding another candidate takes votes away from other candidates and often disproportionately, so the winner now comes second.
That's because it's an electoral system not a tortured sport analogy. I've favoured multi member STV for a while now. With larger constituencies electing between 3 and 5 MP's. Still think Labour would have come close to a majority even on 34% by virtue of being relatively transfer friendly from Greens, LD's, diverse Lefties and in Scotland. Reform would have got more, as they ought. But suffered from no transfers.
STV also ticks other boxes, by accident or design, which most Brits would think important.
Most obviously, the constituency link. Indeed, for urban areas, the boundaries for cities would be more sensible, as the boundary commission could take each of the major cities, make a constituency out of it coterminous with local government boundaries, and allocate the appropriate number of MPs. If the city shrank or grew, you could add or deduct an MP, rather than carving a bit off and attached to the countryside. Seats like Romsey where a corner of Southampton left over has been tacked on, wouldn’t exist. Away from cities it wouldn’t be so neat, but you could still make a better stab at sensible areas, aligned to counties, with the flexibility offered by multi-member seats but of varying size.
Then there’s the bar against fringe parties, which is inherent automatically because STB typically requires 15-25% of the vote in a multi-member seat to get any representation at all. We wouldn’t have the huge range of nutter parties that countries with pure PR often have.
Then there’s the single vote - while voters are able to number all the candidates in order, marking just a first preference would be acceptable, and could even be done with an X.
I would add wrt fringe candidates (nutters or not). The opportunity for their desires to be reflected in the final result by use of transfers. There are folk in Liverpool (believe it or not) with views to the Right of Labour. They could possibly combine to cobble together a single LD MP out of five on a good day. Those to the Left might get a Green or miscellaneous Lefty too. It might encourage more to come out and actually vote.
At this point, picking a random 45 year old blue dog senator or congressman has to have better odds than sticking with Biden? Surely?
Yep.
He lost last Thursday week and that is the bloody end of it.
You are such a wet blanket, by the end of the Democratic convention Biden will probably be back ahead in the polls and by the middle of the subsequent month Trump could be in prison.
The only argument in favour of FPTP that I like is, loosely speaking, the one advanced by Karl Popper: that the important thing in a democracy is to be able to kick out bad governments, rather than to elect what you hope or believe will be optimally good ones.
It's easy to say "the government should reflect the will of the people", but it's not clear that even the best electoral systems can do that, or that the "will of the people" is a meaningful concept. In fact, the belief that the government really does reflect the will of the people can be quite dangerous, because it's a lot harder to insist on checks and balances if what is being checked and balanced is the will of the people.
Instead, FPTP governments are temporary arrangements that get to put forward some kind of programme or manifesto, and then get to attempt to deliver it. The public may, if we're honest, not be paying very close attention to exactly what happens next, but that doesn't matter: their only real decision is whether to vote the government out, and they'll take that decision based on whether things seem to be going well or badly in the round. The Tories are out in 2024 because, even if you had not read, listened to, or watched a single iota of political news in the last 5 years, you'd still know that things are going badly.
Governments can fail because their manifestoes contain bad ideas that produce bad outcomes, or good ideas that they fail to implement, or simply because of bad luck, but each of these factors help to protect us from the worst-case scenario of a bad government that goes on indefinitely. PR, in contrast, can frustrate this: a party can govern badly, lose votes and vote share, and still get back into government via a coalition. Yes, PR avoids lop-sided and disproportionate majorities, but it also avoids lop-sided and disproportionate defeats, of the kinds of the Lib Dems got in 2015 and the Tories and the SNP got in 2024. FPTP, for all of its problems, remains a pretty good way to send a message to a political party, provided that message is "f**k you". And, it turns out, if you can only ever send one message then that's probably the one that you want.
There is certainly something cathartic about kicking out a government that's past its sell by date.
I've been through three "change" elections (well, four, but I don't remember 1979 as I was only 1 and a half) 1997, 2010 and now 2024 and FPTP hasn't failed to deliver amazing moments that stick in the memory in all three elections.
It's important to be able to throw the buggers out...
Not all but under AV most Reform voters would have given the Tories their second preferences and vice versa and the Tories would probably have got over 200 seats as a result and Reform 50-100.
In different circumstances, maybe, but not this time. More Reform voters (marginally) would have gone for opposition parties than the Tories. And if Tories are willing to transfer to reform, how come the guy in Rotherham didn’t do much better?
HYUFD overstates the point, particularly Reform's total (Probably the Tories too) but Reform standing down would have benefitted the Tories and vice-versa in most constituencies. It'd have worked to the Conservatives advantage far more though - Reform would probably have knicked Llanelli this cycle and that'd have been about it to add to their tally.
If you want to kill some time and go down various intriguing rabbit holes, then the list of films on Rotten Tomatoes with 100% rating is fun. Local Hero is there, along with a film called Leave No Trace, which has stayed with me since I saw it in 2018 on a BAFTA screener.
So, walking to the station from the car park this morning. A bloke ambling along next to another guy and carrying a massive bottle of rum, whilst swigging from it at 7am in the morning, with a scraggy beard and very bad teeth shouts over to me, "Hi Casino*!".
Never seen him before in my life, but he knows me. He's probably about my age. He was trying to talk to me, asking if I was going to London, to which I said "yes" to, but I was too confused and busy on emails on my phone plus trying to get the train that left in 3 minutes time. So I was awkward smiling and not really making eye contact with him.
Somewhat unsettling! And I still can't work it out now.
(*obviously it was my real name and not my pb handle)
Do you have a common name, like Mark or David?
Nope. He knew me.
My wife's theory is he's someone I went to school or college with who's fallen on hard times.
These things come out the blue and can somewhat flummox you.
I was at a shop once when the cashier asked where I went to school and when I revealed it they stated I was in the same year as one of the siblings, who was not even a friend of mine.
It made me realise I'm either a lot more memorable than I think I am, or that some people are scarily good with names and faces. This was at least 20 years after the fact.
Occasionally, I get the names of all 3 of my kids right first time. I’m always quite chuffed.
Was talking to my wife about the prospect of buying a second-hand battery electric car at some point in the future, when our current car needs replacing, and we thought that what we wanted to give us confidence buying a second-hand car was a diagnostic report on the health of the battery.
You* can take a second-hand ICE car out for a short test drive and get a decent sense of whether the clutch is on its last legs, and how well the engine is running, but a couple of miles isn't going to tell you anything about the state of the battery in an EV.
This shouldn't be hard at all for the cars to generate, given that they're constantly monitoring the battery, and will be able to measure how it's charged and discharged over recent cycles. There simply needs to be an agreed metric of battery health so that the bury of a second-hand EV knows what they're buying.
* Not me, obviously, but my wife knows enough to do it, and most people would know someone who knows cars well enough to give them an opinion they could trust.
Not all but under AV most Reform voters would have given the Tories their second preferences and vice versa and the Tories would probably have got over 200 seats as a result and Reform 50-100.
In different circumstances, maybe, but not this time. More Reform voters (marginally) would have gone for opposition parties than the Tories. And if Tories are willing to transfer to reform, how come the guy in Rotherham didn’t do much better?
They wouldn't, the polls showed most Reform voters this time voted Conservative in 2019. Rotherham may have gone Reform with AV
Hang on. Labour won 45.1% in Rotherham. Reform 30.3%. With 7.6 LD and 7.1 Green. Are you saying two thirds and more of them would have gone Reform? Then there's the 4.6 for Galloway's lot. Not all Ref. by a long chalk. 3.5 for the Yorkshire Party (who knows? They are funny buggers). And 1.5 for a Moslem Independent. Unlikely to be Reform curious. Are you convinced Reform could have won with AV? I'm not.
Quote Liam Quigley @_elkue 8h “Welcome to our trash revolution.” Mayor Adams introduces the new bin that buildings with 1-9 units will be required to use instead of loose bags of garbage"
Does anyone know where to get the official Shadow Cabinet announcement?
It's not obviously on their website or twitter.
Here, mostly mirrors the last Cabinet apart from MPs replacing those defeated in the election and Cameron and Holden who resigned.
Main changes Mitchell Shadow Foreign Sec, Cartlidge Shadow Defence, Argar Shadow Justice, Hinds Shadow Education. Burghart becomes Shadow NI Sec too, Philp Shadow Leader of the House, Fuller Party chairman and Wright Shadow AG as he was once actual AG. Badenoch moves to Housing
@HYUFD Thank you, I do appreciate it. I was however looking for the announcement itself (rather than the members) - hoping to discern in its wording any clue as to the merits or otherwise of my Sunak to leave later than 2024 bet, it being my only UK politics bet atm.
In the meantime, on no further information I still like my long odds bet
Comments
That is why I said Germany seems to work, you have this historic tie ups, where they are different but everybody knows they will definitely go together.
The rules of first past the post are simple; Labour and Lib Dems read the rules, Reform didn't
@AllieHBNews
·
1m
Tuesday’s Daily EXPRESS: “So What’s It To Be…Tax Rises Or Cuts To Our Services?” #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
Managed to get through the whole election without answering these questions. The media too busy reporting on whether Farage had eaten an ice cream or gone for a pint or discussing endlessly the polling. Total failure.
Which is why they got so heavily smashed...
Far-right in France: 37%.
Labour in UK: 34%.
Over half the pupils have been expelled.
It's 1997 all over again but this time there's not even the prospect Roy Jenkins doing a review (only for it to get kicked into the grass before being killed)
*I know he does, just to all intents and purposes - no one had seen hide nor hare of him.
37% support, where everyone else hates you, loses.
34% support, where everyone else shrugs, wins.
There's more to public support than numbers of first choice votes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_with_a_100%_rating_on_Rotten_Tomatoes
In that respect, the French system has delivered a fairer result than ours.
Ship of fools.
And remember the old one about more joy in heaven over the sinner that repenteth..
I've favoured multi member STV for a while now. With larger constituencies electing between 3 and 5 MP's.
Still think Labour would have come close to a majority even on 34% by virtue of being relatively
transfer friendly from Greens, LD's, diverse Lefties and in Scotland.
Reform would have got more, as they ought. But suffered from no transfers.
There's a real problem here bordering on a scandal, assuming the ID is genuine and people aren't deliberately impersonating someone else.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
Felix Zwayer, who will lead an all-German officiating team in England's semi-final against the Netherlands, also has a history with England star Jude Bellingham."
https://news.sky.com/story/euro-2024-why-england-star-bellingham-has-history-with-referee-taking-charge-of-euro-2024-semi-final-13175128
"In 2005, Zwayer was involved in the match fixing scandal which centered around 2. Bundesliga referee Robert Hoyzer, who took bribes to fix several matches which he officiated. Zwayer assisted him in a match and accepted a bribe of 300 euros to avoid critical scenes for Wuppertaler SV. In January 2005, he and three other high-ranking referees informed the DFB about Hoyzer's match fixing. He was subsequently banned from refereeing for 6 months, a suspension that was kept secret for several years until the German newspaper Die Zeit published a secret file from the German FA."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Zwayer
I love that almost enough to try to get a video from one of the AI programs.
8 member seats. Elected under D'Hondt. Local party members decide on the lists.
Proportional. One vote per person. Straightforward to count. Result before breakfast. Essentially a minimum threshold to get representation. Maintains a level of local(ish) representation.
Labour would have lost significant numbers of seats it won though and likely ended up with only a narrow majority. SNP may have done even worse and been near wiped out with Unionists preferencing each other.
Who would have thought 13 years ago the biggest winner of FPTP beating AV in the 2011 referendum would be Labour?
Films before 2000 seem to be ok.
This wizard wheeze is a microcosm which sums up Tory rule perfectly.
Too clever by half policies implemented for purely electoral advantage.
Treating folk like imbeciles.
Biden has beaten Trump already, he was right, if his internal opponents want to remove him they can challenge him at the Democratic convention, otherwise he is going nowhere. He also knows he has the vast majority of the delegates behind him and can crush his enemies in the party in Chicago if required after which Democratic royalty like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Kennedy III will make speeches rallying the faithful to Biden
https://x.com/paulbranditv/status/1810419421250228711
We should have STV for local elections though.
Stop the one-party fiefdoms in places like Tower Hamlets that encourage corruption.
It's easy to say "the government should reflect the will of the people", but it's not clear that even the best electoral systems can do that, or that the "will of the people" is a meaningful concept. In fact, the belief that the government really does reflect the will of the people can be quite dangerous, because it's a lot harder to insist on checks and balances if what is being checked and balanced is the will of the people.
Instead, FPTP governments are temporary arrangements that get to put forward some kind of programme or manifesto, and then get to attempt to deliver it. The public may, if we're honest, not be paying very close attention to exactly what happens next, but that doesn't matter: their only real decision is whether to vote the government out, and they'll take that decision based on whether things seem to be going well or badly in the round. The Tories are out in 2024 because, even if you had not read, listened to, or watched a single iota of political news in the last 5 years, you'd still know that things are going badly.
Governments can fail because their manifestoes contain bad ideas that produce bad outcomes, or good ideas that they fail to implement, or simply because of bad luck, but each of these factors help to protect us from the worst-case scenario of a bad government that goes on indefinitely. PR, in contrast, can frustrate this: a party can govern badly, lose votes and vote share, and still get back into government via a coalition. Yes, PR avoids lop-sided and disproportionate majorities, but it also avoids lop-sided and disproportionate defeats, of the kinds of the Lib Dems got in 2015 and the Tories and the SNP got in 2024. FPTP, for all of its problems, remains a pretty good way to send a message to a political party, provided that message is "f**k you". And, it turns out, if you can only ever send one message then that's probably the one that you want.
I certainly don't want D'Hondt. And I wouldn't trust anyone weird enough to be a Party member to be ordering my lists for me.
Also. And I think this is vital, I want a choice of MP if I have a problem.
If my MP is lazy, ineffective, or simply doesn't have any sympathy with my issue, to whom do I turn? You could reply, don't vote for them. But what if I already hadn't voted for them?
Also. Name doesn't match name on roll. I presume that means recently married women in the main?
Main changes Mitchell Shadow Foreign Sec, Cartlidge Shadow Defence, Argar Shadow Justice, Hinds Shadow Education. Burghart becomes Shadow NI Sec too, Philp Shadow Leader of the House, Fuller Party chairman and Wright Shadow AG as he was once actual AG. Badenoch moves to Housing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Opposition_Shadow_Cabinet_(United_Kingdom)
How on earth did they have Edinburgh West as "SNP by 9%"
Appropriate for a Buddhist.
"Manchester Rusholme 40.0%
Leeds South 41.7%
Kingston upon Hull East 42.2%
Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney 42.7%
Tipton and Wednesbury 42.9%
Blackley and Middleton South 43.5%
Birmingham Erdington 43.6%
Birmingham Ladywood 43.7%
Wolverhampton South East 43.7%
Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North 43.9%"
https://vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/19012/seat-turnout-2024-ge
The votes in any seat determine that seat.
The votes in any other seat have no bearing. They belong to a different demos.
Democracy in action.
2. If one MP is lazy, you'll have another seven you can try instead.
https://x.com/justinbaragona/status/1810394477452046756
Two I haven't heard of before.
It's going to get sketchier later on.
https://conservativehome.com/2024/07/08/sunaks-shadow-cabinet-dowden-appointed-shadow-deputy-leader-mitchell-replaces-cameron-and-badenoch-goes-to-housing/
Most obviously, the constituency link. Indeed, for urban areas, the boundaries for cities would be more sensible, as the boundary commission could take each of the major cities, make a constituency out of it coterminous with local government boundaries, and allocate the appropriate number of MPs. If the city shrank or grew, you could add or deduct an MP, rather than carving a bit off and attached to the countryside. Seats like Romsey where a corner of Southampton left over has been tacked on, wouldn’t exist. Away from cities it wouldn’t be so neat, but you could still make a better stab at sensible areas, aligned to counties, with the flexibility offered by multi-member seats but of varying size.
Then there’s the bar against fringe parties, which is inherent automatically because STB typically requires 15-25% of the vote in a multi-member seat to get any representation at all. We wouldn’t have the huge range of nutter parties that countries with pure PR often have.
Then there’s the single vote - while voters are able to number all the candidates in order, marking just a first preference would be acceptable, and could even be done with an X.
This is so terribly grim.
This cannot go on.
If, for example, events mean Farage is the next Tory leader, he might bump the Tory vote up a bit by bringing over some Reform voters. But you can bet the Labour vote is going up too as Tories who hate Farage, leftists, Lib Dems and so on decide if they're in a Tory/Labour/Reform fight, Labour aren't so bad after all.
Indeed a very interesting question arising from Thursday’s election is this - apply a swing against Labour (uniform or proportional, as you please) until its majority is reduced to just ONE - how low would its vote share be? Yet still win majority power. I suspect the answer is quite shocking.
He lost last Thursday week and that is the bloody end of it.
The opportunity for their desires to be reflected in the final result by use of transfers.
There are folk in Liverpool (believe it or not) with views to the Right of Labour. They could possibly combine to cobble together a single LD MP out of five on a good day.
Those to the Left might get a Green or miscellaneous Lefty too.
It might encourage more to come out and actually vote.
This election has a long way to go yet
I've been through three "change" elections (well, four, but I don't remember 1979 as I was only 1 and a half) 1997, 2010 and now 2024 and FPTP hasn't failed to deliver amazing moments that stick in the memory in all three elections.
It's important to be able to throw the buggers out...
It seems like v cynical political opportunitism to me Not more voting system discussion !!
You* can take a second-hand ICE car out for a short test drive and get a decent sense of whether the clutch is on its last legs, and how well the engine is running, but a couple of miles isn't going to tell you anything about the state of the battery in an EV.
This shouldn't be hard at all for the cars to generate, given that they're constantly monitoring the battery, and will be able to measure how it's charged and discharged over recent cycles. There simply needs to be an agreed metric of battery health so that the bury of a second-hand EV knows what they're buying.
* Not me, obviously, but my wife knows enough to do it, and most people would know someone who knows cars well enough to give them an opinion they could trust.
Mike you are not.
Labour won 45.1% in Rotherham. Reform 30.3%.
With 7.6 LD and 7.1 Green.
Are you saying two thirds and more of them would have gone Reform?
Then there's the 4.6 for Galloway's lot. Not all Ref. by a long chalk.
3.5 for the Yorkshire Party (who knows? They are funny buggers).
And 1.5 for a Moslem Independent. Unlikely to be Reform curious.
Are you convinced Reform could have won with AV?
I'm not.
@moveincircles
Wake up babe New York City has invented bins
Quote
Liam Quigley
@_elkue
8h
“Welcome to our trash revolution.” Mayor Adams introduces the new bin that buildings with 1-9 units will be required to use instead of loose bags of garbage"
https://x.com/moveincircles/status/1810386106799530286
In the meantime, on no further information I still like my long odds bet
A related news article from today
That market is totally mispriced, I really think.