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The changing face of the electorate – politicalbetting.com

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  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,500
    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Russia's lost another ship; this time a cargo ship in the Mediterranean:

    https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1871400348432085047

    Oh dear, what a shame. (Etc.)
    If this site is to be believed, it suffered a broken fuel line and lost power:

    https://www.vesseltracker.com/en/Ships/Ursa-Major-9538892.html

    I’m not quite sure why that would be terminal on its own - the weather in the Western Med doesn’t look very bad - but it may have been a sign of even more serious maintenance issues perhaps?

    Apparently it was on its way to Syria to retrieve Russian military equipment.
    ISTR at least one case where an engine fire led to a pipe leading from a sea chest (*) being fractured, and the ship sinking. If, as reported, elsewhere, there was an explosion in the engine room, then it is perfectly possible for both seachests/piping to be damaged, and for the pumps to be inoperable.

    Especially given the poor state some of these Russian vessels appear to be in.

    Also, it is reported that it was not on its way to Syria; it was carrying two very large cranes to Vladivostok, along with hatches for a new icebreaker that is under construction.

    https://x.com/CovertShores/status/1871338618171822370

    (*) A 'sea chest' is a system taking seawater from outside the ship into the ship's interior, for use for engine cooling, trim ballast, firefighting etc.
  • rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    All together now... "One of Viewcode's Rants is infantilised adults and adultised children. We need a bright shining line between adult and child, and that cutoff should be by age".

    Over the past, what, 20? years, that line has become blurred and seems to move up and down depending on whatever. Last time I bought this up people were kind enough to explain that a wide range is historically not unusual, and I take the point, but we should be making it narrower, not wider. I knew about the Catholic Age of Reason (7? 8?) which is frankly ridiculous (apologies to my Marian colleagues). I'd go for 16 or 18: younger than that is child abuse, older than that is stupid. If a child becomes an adult at 16, then a voting age of 16 is valid. If 17 or more, than a voting age of 16 is invalid.

    This is it for me. I want one age (although I would set your range anywhere between 14 and 21 with a pretty neutral view). For fucking, porning, voting, smoking, drinking, driving, contracting, fighting, not-truanting, businessing, invading, imprisoning, murdering, shooting, marrying, trolling... I personally think that 15 or 16 is probably the best age for this but I'm very chilled about precisely what it is and I can see that in our infanitalised treatment of teenagers maybe only 21 would be accepted. I can live with that. The important thing is that it is bloody consistent. These different ages are very silly indeed.
    Are they inconsistent?

    Many of us have kids. Some of us even have kids that we know about.

    And you know what, they don't go from one day a baby, the next able to be Prime Minister. They grow and they evolve and they mature.

    As parents, we expand the perimeter of their responsibilities gradually. We say "yes, you can walk to and from the shops on your own", "yes, you can stay home overnight on your own", "no, you can't smoke that in the house", "yes, you can bring your girlfriend for your birthday dinner", "no, she can't stay overnight in your bedroom", "yes, you can choose your A Levels and University", etc etc etc.

    Now, different people mature at different rates, and sadly simplicity is necessary for laws.

    But kids gain responsibilities one bit at a time, not in some sudden rush of maturity.
    Nevertheless getting married, joining the army, having a full-time job, flying a glider and having sex are of rather more consequence and risk, both to you and others, than voting for your local councillor or MP.
    I disagree.

    When you vote, you stand in judgement over your fellow man, just as a magistrate and a juror does.

    It bears the same responsibility.

    I think the age of voting and the age of acting as a Juror should be the same, and should be 18.
    As with all things the age for voting was a descendent of previous decisions over a thousand years. There were certainly peers who took their seats in the House of Lords at 16 before I guess 1689, not I think many since.

    With property rights many wills set the age when the heir could take control, this was often 25 or 24, ever 30 sometimes. I have seen others which said 14, mainly in a working agricultural environment. An Elizabethan will provided for the heir until he was 7, and then he was to find for himself ! But most wills did not make that declaration and in the absence 21 was inserted in equity but not I think in law.

    Should there be a limit under which you cannot vote ? Should 16s have the vote, 14, 10, 8, 6, 3 ? I hope clearly the last three are absurd, so there should be an age. There is an implicit expectation that the loonies who vote will more or less cancel each other out.

    Like Harold Wilson Keir Starmer is assuming those given the vote will break for him. Like Harold Wilson he will be proved wrong.

    It isn't gerrymandering any more that any other change to the way elections are conducted apart from banning your opponents from standing as Keir's friends in Czechoslovakia used to do. Didn't end well for them and won't end well for Keir. The electorate will always move towards change and if change is denied it will continue to move until change does happen.

    Keir's only lasting legacy will be the checks and balances which will be introduced with almost universal agreement to ensure such a man never becomes Prime Minister again.
  • Foxy said:

    Heathener said:

    Merry Christmas everyone.

    I’ve been travelling around the world, a circumnavigation, and haven’t been following the so-called News but I hope you’re all well.

    xx

    Great to see you back.

    Last day of work for me before the break, so I thought I would share some difficult sums:


    Sums up Xmas. Was it solved using log tables.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    This thread has

    done a passable impression of a Russian cargo ship

  • NEW THREAD

  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,914
    ...
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,711
    Sean_F said:

    Foxy said:

    RobD said:

    carnforth said:

    FT sticking the boot in:



    "Fuck business" indeed.

    They are feeling about the same as they were at the start of a once-in-a-century global pandemic.
    Which shows there's been a ridiculous over reaction.

    Almost certainly so, and the corollary is that there will be a steep recovery in the Spring.
    Business investment numbers are in fact, not bad, up 1.9% on the quarter, and 5.8% on the year.

    But, I don’t know what the government has been playing at.
    Socialism.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,914
    You can give 16 and 17 year olds the right to vote, but will they do so?

    What if it's only Young Etonians who bother?
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