This paragraph was particularly interesting (and rather surprising, I thought):
There is also some evidence to suggest that Miliband might also be contributing to Labour's vulnerability to Ukip; 62% of Labour voters who switched to Ukip in 2014 elections dislike or feel indifferent toward Miliband, compared with a far lower 45% of Conservative defectors who feel the same way about Cameron. While more Conservatives are switching to Ukip, this suggests that in relative terms Cameron might actually have an easier time than Miliband in winning some of them back. Around 80% of Conservative voters who are already planning to return to the fold in 2015 like Cameron, but only 61% of the Labour voters say they are thinking of coming back like Miliband.
As I've said before, a key factor in GE2015 will be the extent (if any) to which there is differential swingback from UKIP to Labour and the Tories. This is a big unknown, and is one reason why I think Nick P may be wrong to thing not much will change between now and the election. That current 15% or so of UKIP support in the opinion polls is a significant consideration in assessing the probability of various scenarios.
Spot on, Mr. Navabi, but, as I have said before, the critical point is not how large that current UKIP voter intention is, but where it is.
Intended UKIP voters in safe Conservative seats like my own (or Labour ones come to that) don't matter. What is important is how many there are in the marginals and places like Crawley. Are there enough of them to swing the result, or be enticed back into their "natural" fold? I don't know, but I think it might be important.
My analysis from last month that pointed out, with a year to go, only Michael Foot had worse leader ratings than Ed and Dave's ratings place him mid table.
Can't really argue with that. The Tories have absolutely no excuses not to win a majority next year.
The electoral system is biased against the blues.
The blues finish ahead of the reds by 7 points and they still can't get a majority.
The Reds finish ahead of the blues by 7 points and it is a Lab majority of 100 plus.
It is like the seven Labours of Hercules for The Tories to win a majority.
You need to remember that the LibDems only support fair voting systems when it is in their interest.
AFAIR the only questionable action from the LibDems was re equal sized constituencies. And that was after they’d been severely shafted by Dave and Osborne over AV. Which is fairer than FPTP but not much.
They weren't shafted over AV: the Tories were always clear they were going to campaign against it (and Cameron tried to sit out for a long time). No2AV just ran a better, if somewhat vicious, campaign.
Rejecting equal sized constituencies because they weren't bribed with a fix-up of the House of Lords was an act of pique. From a political perspective it's understandable (although I think it undermined their credibility as it proved beyond doubt that they couldn't be a trusted partner in the Coalition, so I'm not sure the gain was worth it) - but as I said to rcs1000, it's the hypocrisy that stinks
Oh Gawd , more Conservation whinging that a voting system which gives them 48% of the seats in the H of C for 37% of the vote is not biased enough in their favour .
Nope, that's not what I'm saying.
I like the fact that there is a strong constituency link and that there is a bonus to the winner.
But each constituency should, if possible, be broadly similar in size. If anything I'd rather do it on votes cast to create an incentive to increase voter participation in heartland seats
Will be bollocks, just smear and innuendo with nothing said. Some tame unionists saying they are big fearties and maybe the big bad Scottish government would not like them , pathetic that unionists are reduced to such barrel scraping. Only 5 out of 50 had any concerns and none of them could say anything was said to them , only that they were feart.
"It would resemble the outcome of the battle of Waterloo, where the best army in the campaign was defeated by the second best with the assistance of the worst."
If you will pardon the crudity, "Bollocks". An army is made up of many things; training equipment, leadership, and the basic stubbornness of the ordinary soldier. If the Frogs were so good as you say they would have beaten the British* army before the Prussians got on to the field. It didn't, therefore it was not the best army in the campaign.
*The KGL and the Cloggies did a spiffing job and were a major factor.
I like the fact that there is a strong constituency link and that there is a bonus to the winner.
But each constituency should, if possible, be broadly similar in size. If anything I'd rather do it on votes cast to create an incentive to increase voter participation in heartland seats
So what you're saying is that if even more Conservatives turn out and vote in Beaconsfield, Buckingham or Bexhill, the Conservatives should get a further bonus on top of winning the seat.
I'm not wholly opposed but I think before we get to that point, there's the much more fundamental question of the fact that in what is supposedly a "General" Election but is in fact 650 by-elections held on the same day, millions of people will cast their vote for it to have not the least significance or relevance.
Before we over-enfranchise the heartlands, we need to enfranchise the currently effectively disenfranchised. It's not difficult - the current system relies on the geographic concentration of votes and that probably reflects the socio-economic polarisation of the country.
To play old numpty Bond's game, let's have two constituencies and three parties in each. In Seat A, Party A wins 20,000 votes, Party B 15,000 votes and Party C 5,000 votes. In Seat B, Party A wins 5,000 votes, Party B 15,000 votes and Party C 20,000 votes.
Party A has a seat, Party C has a seat but more people have actually voted for Party B but thanks to FPTP they have nothing. In this example, I've disenfranchised the largest minority of voters - FPTP is also extremely good at disenfranchising smaller minorities as well.
My analysis from last month that pointed out, with a year to go, only Michael Foot had worse leader ratings than Ed and Dave's ratings place him mid table.
Can't really argue with that. The Tories have absolutely no excuses not to win a majority next year.
The electoral system is biased against the blues.
The blues finish ahead of the reds by 7 points and they still can't get a majority.
The Reds finish ahead of the blues by 7 points and it is a Lab majority of 100 plus.
It is like the seven Labours of Hercules for The Tories to win a majority.
You need to remember that the LibDems only support fair voting systems when it is in their interest.
AFAIR the only questionable action from the LibDems was re equal sized constituencies. And that was after they’d been severely shafted by Dave and Osborne over AV. Which is fairer than FPTP but not much.
They weren't shafted over AV: the Tories were always clear they were going to campaign against it (and Cameron tried to sit out for a long time). No2AV just ran a better, if somewhat vicious, campaign.
Rejecting equal sized constituencies because they weren't bribed with a fix-up of the House of Lords was an act of pique. From a political perspective it's understandable (although I think it undermined their credibility as it proved beyond doubt that they couldn't be a trusted partner in the Coalition, so I'm not sure the gain was worth it) - but as I said to rcs1000, it's the hypocrisy that stinks
Oh Gawd , more Conservation whinging that a voting system which gives them 48% of the seats in the H of C for 37% of the vote is not biased enough in their favour .
I'm amazed their protestations meet with universal derision Mark.
Jeremy Browne on daily politics threatening to dismantle the Nhs just as Obama got the thing going over in America - this is what happens when you call everything neo-liberal, you idiot lefties - I DO hope you're happy
I like the fact that there is a strong constituency link and that there is a bonus to the winner.
But each constituency should, if possible, be broadly similar in size. If anything I'd rather do it on votes cast to create an incentive to increase voter participation in heartland seats
So what you're saying is that if even more Conservatives turn out and vote in Beaconsfield, Buckingham or Bexhill, the Conservatives should get a further bonus on top of winning the seat.
I'm not wholly opposed but I think before we get to that point, there's the much more fundamental question of the fact that in what is supposedly a "General" Election but is in fact 650 by-elections held on the same day, millions of people will cast their vote for it to have not the least significance or relevance.
Before we over-enfranchise the heartlands, we need to enfranchise the currently effectively disenfranchised. It's not difficult - the current system relies on the geographic concentration of votes and that probably reflects the socio-economic polarisation of the country.
To play old numpty Bond's game, let's have two constituencies and three parties in each. In Seat A, Party A wins 20,000 votes, Party B 15,000 votes and Party C 5,000 votes. In Seat B, Party A wins 5,000 votes, Party B 15,000 votes and Party C 20,000 votes.
Party A has a seat, Party C has a seat but more people have actually voted for Party B but thanks to FPTP they have nothing. In this example, I've disenfranchised the largest minority of voters - FPTP is also extremely good at disenfranchising smaller minorities as well.
Those who favour FPTP or STV should be rendered into fertilizer to assist Scottish farmers.
In return Scotland will export their AMS electoral system that maintains a viable constituency link with a high degree of proportionality and also allows for majority government within reasonable bounds.
The established parties ought to ask themselves why no-one from John Major's background has even come close to leading their parties recently.
The early 90s was arguably the most egalitarian period in recent British history, with the 1992 election featuring three party leaders from ordinary backgrounds.
This paragraph was particularly interesting (and rather surprising, I thought):
There is also some evidence to suggest that Miliband might also be contributing to Labour's vulnerability to Ukip; 62% of Labour voters who switched to Ukip in 2014 elections dislike or feel indifferent toward Miliband, compared with a far lower 45% of Conservative defectors who feel the same way about Cameron. While more Conservatives are switching to Ukip, this suggests that in relative terms Cameron might actually have an easier time than Miliband in winning some of them back. Around 80% of Conservative voters who are already planning to return to the fold in 2015 like Cameron, but only 61% of the Labour voters say they are thinking of coming back like Miliband.
As I've said before, a key factor in GE2015 will be the extent (if any) to which there is differential swingback from UKIP to Labour and the Tories. This is a big unknown, and is one reason why I think Nick P may be wrong to think not much will change between now and the election. That current 15% or so of UKIP support in the opinion polls is a significant consideration in assessing the probability of various scenarios.
Of course, what the report fails to emphasise is that if even if its own forecasts of returners proves right (80% and 61%), the Tories are toast.
Slightly off topic: In the last five YG polls, The Tories are averaging 17% of 2010 LibDems (DKs excluded). This is up from 13.7% in June, and about 11% in July last year. Labour is pretty steady on the low thirties, having been in the 40s often in 2012.
This means that the Labour advantage over the Tories among 2010 LibDems has (temporarily?) reduced from about 3:1 to about 2:1.
This may not mean people are switching (though UKIp seems down a bit). The number of 2010 LibDems who say they wont vote has declined by 3/4 points. These could have broken disproportionately to Tories - or of course, if could be a (somewhat sustained) polling blip. One worth keeping an eye on, though.
Party A has a seat, Party C has a seat but more people have actually voted for Party B but thanks to FPTP they have nothing. In this example, I've disenfranchised the largest minority of voters - FPTP is also extremely good at disenfranchising smaller minorities as well.
That's a heroically barmy use of the word 'disenfranchised'. They weren't disenfranchised in any sense whatsoever. They happened to vote in each case for the candidate who came second, that is all. In what conceivable world is that equivalent to not having a vote? Voting doesn't become invalidated because your candidate doesn't win.
Of course, the result would have been different if the voting system had been different (or at least, it would have been if everyone had voted in exactly the same way under the different system, which is another heroic assumption). Or they might have been different if the constituencies had been drawn up to favour them. But so what?
@JBriskin Is Jeremy Browne an "Orange Booker"? They had some novel ideas on the future of the health service I believe. If so, why are the "lefties" to blame for the "right wing Liberals"?
Another one who cannot name a single senior Labour figure who has said Labour are doomed. All morning and not a single name has emerged.
No doubt you will now accuse me of 'over-posting'. Your being the PB Tories' self-appointed moderator of dissent. LOL.
When I say that you "overpost" I mean that you undermine your own position by constantly and anxiously re-stating it. Like you are doing now.
And don't, be silly, who expects senior figures to be letting their views be known, except anonymously, at this stage? But if you want a name here's a name: Jon Cruddas.
"In the new recording passed to the Telegraph, Mr Cruddas said that Mr Miliband was battling to unite “different camps” within the party, and struggling to manage the news cycle. “He’s actually trying to unpack it, he’s trying to unpack it,” said Mr Cruddas. “But he just gets gamed out every day, every week because of the news cycle, the media, levels of intrusion, the party management side.” “The fact that a lot of things haven’t really been reconciled – the different camps,” he added, as he spoke at the Labour activist gathering at the weekend."
@JBriskin Is Jeremy Browne an "Orange Booker"? They had some novel ideas on the future of the health service I believe. If so, why are the "lefties" to blame for the "right wing Liberals"?
[Is Jeremy Browne an "Orange Booker"?]
I don't know
[They had some novel ideas on the future of the health service I believe.]
They wrote a whole book about it.
[If so, why are the "lefties" to blame for the "right wing Liberals"?]
I don't have a problem with right wing liberals - I have a problem with idiot lefties and their misunderstanding of economics which leads to half the population being intoxicated with garbage language.
Another one who cannot name a single senior Labour figure who has said Labour are doomed. All morning and not a single name has emerged.
No doubt you will now accuse me of 'over-posting'. Your being the PB Tories' self-appointed moderator of dissent. LOL.
When I say that you "overpost" I mean that you undermine your own position by constantly and anxiously re-stating it. Like you are doing now.
And don't, be silly, who expects senior figures to be letting their views be known, except anonymously, at this stage? But if you want a name here's a name: Jon Cruddas.
"In the new recording passed to the Telegraph, Mr Cruddas said that Mr Miliband was battling to unite “different camps” within the party, and struggling to manage the news cycle. “He’s actually trying to unpack it, he’s trying to unpack it,” said Mr Cruddas. “But he just gets gamed out every day, every week because of the news cycle, the media, levels of intrusion, the party management side.” “The fact that a lot of things haven’t really been reconciled – the different camps,” he added, as he spoke at the Labour activist gathering at the weekend."
There is endless drivel posted hourly by the PB Tories, yet I have seen you accuse the likes of Scott_P of overposting rehashed slurry from others. Funny that.
Re: Cruddas. Show me where in that article he says anything about Labour being doomed. In other words, put up or shut up.
You are clearly rattled. You are over-posting etc etc.
That's a heroically barmy use of the word 'disenfranchised'. They weren't disenfranchised in any sense whatsoever. They happened to vote in each case for the candidate who came second, that is all. In what conceivable world is that equivalent to not having a vote? Voting doesn't become invalidated because your candidate doesn't win.
Of course, the result would have been different if the voting system had been different (or at least, it would have been if everyone had voted in exactly the same way under the different system, which is another heroic assumption). Or they might have been different if the constituencies had been drawn up to favour them. But so what?
My argument is that just as those who wish to rubbish more proportional systems such as STV can come up with scenarios to support their view, it's perfectly possible to rubbish FPTP in the same way. Your argument seems to be that you don't care about voters who don't support the winning candidate in a seat. It's just their bad luck for living in the wrong place.
By the way, how do you explain the heroically barmy "Voting doesn't become invalidated because your candidate doesn't win" comment ? My vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate in East Ham next year will serve only one purpose (and it may not do that) and that's to save the deposit. It will be added to the party's national tally but that has zero relevance or significance in the FPTP system.
Ishmael_X said: » show previous quotes When I say that you "overpost" I mean that you undermine your own position by constantly and anxiously re-stating it. Like you are doing now.
And don't, be silly, who expects senior figures to be letting their views be known, except anonymously, at this stage? But if you want a name here's a name: Jon Cruddas.
"In the new recording passed to the Telegraph, Mr Cruddas said that Mr Miliband was battling to unite “different camps” within the party, and struggling to manage the news cycle. “He’s actually trying to unpack it, he’s trying to unpack it,” said Mr Cruddas. “But he just gets gamed out every day, every week because of the news cycle, the media, levels of intrusion, the party management side.” “The fact that a lot of things haven’t really been reconciled – the different camps,” he added, as he spoke at the Labour activist gathering at the weekend." There is endless drivel posted hourly by the PB Tories, yet I have never seen you accuse the likes of Scott_P of overposting rehashed slurry from others. Funny that.
Re: Cruddas. Show me where in that article he says anything about Labour being doomed. In other words, put up or shut up.
You are clearly rattled. You are over-posting etc etc.
Oh Gawd , more Conservation whinging that a voting system which gives them 48% of the seats in the H of C for 37% of the vote is not biased enough in their favour .
To be fair, Mark, both the Conservative and Labour Parties do very well out of the current system. 65% of the vote in 2010 and nearly 90% of the seats. I thought some numpty would pipe up with the 49-49-2 scenario but we have the wonderful real example of 2010 when not 49% but 64% were effectively ignored with a party winning a majority on 36% of the vote.
And only one party was able to do so. The others would have needed 45% or more.
In a 3-party system there's an argument that a tied result is 33.3% each. It is then impossible to argue even that people voted "against" this or that party because the figures resolve the same way for everyone. What is ludicrous is the LibDem argument that a system that places the largest minor party permanently in power is somehow fair.
"It would resemble the outcome of the battle of Waterloo, where the best army in the campaign was defeated by the second best with the assistance of the worst."
If you will pardon the crudity, "Bollocks". An army is made up of many things; training equipment, leadership, and the basic stubbornness of the ordinary soldier. If the Frogs were so good as you say they would have beaten the British* army before the Prussians got on to the field. It didn't, therefore it was not the best army in the campaign.
*The KGL and the Cloggies did a spiffing job and were a major factor.
Wellington thought his army was "infamous, weak and ill-equipped", so he didn't agree. He was outnumbered overall and specifically in artillery and light infantry; he had exactly one squadron of lancers; and he had no armoured cavalry at all, whereas the French had IIRC 14 regiments.
He won because Napoleon delegated operational command to incompetent subordinates. Wellington's 68,000 beat 62,000 French only because Ney mishandled the cavalry. Meanwhile 10,000 French held off 50,000 Prussians for most of the day.
You are perhaps familiar with the Hofschroer view of all this which reduces it, foolishly, to a numbers game. The fact is that Wellington fought two battles and won both, Blucher fought three and lost the two he fought alone, and the French fought four, won two (against the Prussians) and lost two (that involved Wellington).
The fairest inference one can draw is that Wellington's performance as a battle captain offset the mediocrity of his army, so while he didn't have the best army his army had the best commander.
Another one who cannot name a single senior Labour figure who has said Labour are doomed. All morning and not a single name has emerged.
No doubt you will now accuse me of 'over-posting'. Your being the PB Tories' self-appointed moderator of dissent. LOL.
When I say that you "overpost" I mean that you undermine your own position by constantly and anxiously re-stating it. Like you are doing now.
And don't, be silly, who expects senior figures to be letting their views be known, except anonymously, at this stage? But if you want a name here's a name: Jon Cruddas.
"In the new recording passed to the Telegraph, Mr Cruddas said that Mr Miliband was battling to unite “different camps” within the party, and struggling to manage the news cycle. “He’s actually trying to unpack it, he’s trying to unpack it,” said Mr Cruddas. “But he just gets gamed out every day, every week because of the news cycle, the media, levels of intrusion, the party management side.” “The fact that a lot of things haven’t really been reconciled – the different camps,” he added, as he spoke at the Labour activist gathering at the weekend."
There is endless drivel posted hourly by the PB Tories, yet I have seen you accuse the likes of Scott_P of overposting rehashed slurry from others. Funny that.
Re: Cruddas. Show me where in that article he says anything about Labour being doomed. In other words, put up or shut up.
You are clearly rattled. You are over-posting etc etc.
OK you have rumbled me.
Every single member of the Shadow Cabinet and all living former members of Labour governments believe that Miliband not only is the strongest leader that the party has ever had or will have, but represents a conceptual maximum of fitness for the job which could never even theoretically be exceeded between now and the heat death of the universe. That view will be triumphantly endorsed and vindicated when He ascends in Glory next May.
I am sorry to have made any posts which may have inadvertently suggested the contrary and profoundly regret any offence I may have caused.
Of course, what the report fails to emphasise is that if even if its own forecasts of returners proves right (80% and 61%), the Tories are toast.
If nothing else changes in voting intention, yes, Miliband will be in No 10 in early May 2015. This is true.
However, we know from past experience, as quantified in Stephen Fisher's superb work, that it is unlikely that nothing else will change.
There's no guarantee of this, of course. It's not invariably true that those who say 'this time will be different' are wrong. But they usually are.
Of course it all could change. Nevertheless, the numbers you quote on the Purple Tories and Purple Labourites are something of a red (or blue!) herring as were the returner forecasts proved correct they would put Ed in No. 10.
This paragraph was particularly interesting (and rather surprising, I thought):
There is also some evidence to suggest that Miliband might also be contributing to Labour's vulnerability to Ukip; 62% of Labour voters who switched to Ukip in 2014 elections dislike or feel indifferent toward Miliband, compared with a far lower 45% of Conservative defectors who feel the same way about Cameron. While more Conservatives are switching to Ukip, this suggests that in relative terms Cameron might actually have an easier time than Miliband in winning some of them back. Around 80% of Conservative voters who are already planning to return to the fold in 2015 like Cameron, but only 61% of the Labour voters say they are thinking of coming back like Miliband.
As I've said before, a key factor in GE2015 will be the extent (if any) to which there is differential swingback from UKIP to Labour and the Tories. This is a big unknown, and is one reason why I think Nick P may be wrong to think not much will change between now and the election. That current 15% or so of UKIP support in the opinion polls is a significant consideration in assessing the probability of various scenarios.
There isn't any question that Cameron is more popular among Tory supporters, or indeed that the remaining Tory support is very solid. There just isn't enough of it.
Leadership is one factor that influences voting, but if you ask "How will you vote?" first (as pollsters do) and then "Do you like X?" "What do you think about immigration?" and a host of other things, you have to assume they're factored into the first question plus various other things that pollster didn't ask. The Con/Lab voters who are thinking of returning from UKIP may be influenced by liking Cameron and disliking the Tory government respectively, for instance.
I'm eating a Tesco West Country Cheddar and Pickle sandwich as I write. I don't like that it's a bit messy, and the Cheddar's a bit boring. Regardless, however, I bought it because it's the best sandwich available near me and I do like pickle. A lot of voters think about political parties pretty much like that. Given FPTP, we have to, really.
By the way, how do you explain the heroically barmy "Voting doesn't become invalidated because your candidate doesn't win" comment ? My vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate in East Ham next year will serve only one purpose (and it may not do that) and that's to save the deposit. It will be added to the party's national tally but that has zero relevance or significance in the FPTP system.
You can vote for whomever you like. If not enough other people agree with you, your favoured candidate will lose. On a bad night he or she will lose their deposit. That doesn't invalidate your vote, it means the candidate didn't have much support. That's kinda the idea of democracy, isn't it?
I merely asked for the OP to back up his claim, a task he eschewed and you gallantly took up on his behalf. Sadly your venture ended in failure, but full marks for bravery.
@JBriskin And as for point 1, from my point of view, the problem lies with those on the right who "think" they know economics. But without being able to look at a few simple maths problems.
@JBriskin And as for point 1, from my point of view, the problem lies with those on the right who "think" they know economics. But without being able to look at a few simple maths problems.
CASIOS Smarmy CASIOS!!!! I trust those on the right know how to use them - I get the impression that lefties are so impressed with themselves that they feel there's no need.
You can vote for whomever you like. If not enough other people agree with you, your favoured candidate will lose. On a bad night he or she will lose their deposit. That doesn't invalidate your vote, it means the candidate didn't have much support. That's kinda the idea of democracy, isn't it?
At a constituency level, I don't have an argument with you. My contention remains that beyond the constituency level, there is nothing to reflect the actual votes cast for parties. FPTP creates 650 separate contests - it is not a "general" election because the votes for parties across the board simply aren't reflected.
In other words, representation is derived purely from the geographic concentration of the like-minded. Get all your supporters into some seats and forget the others and that's how to play the FPTP game. An even distribution of support which might be numerically more significant but is geographically diverse is disadvantaged - that doesn't sound much like democracy, does it ?
A quick question for anyone that knows: is there still a visa for skilled non-EU graduates, or has this category now been entirely phased out?
For anyone interested, it seems that it has. You now can only come to the UK as a skilled migrant if you have a job. Interesting.
It doesn't seem like the ideal system, but given the huge immigration from the EU we can't tackle, it seems like we don't have much choice. If we could limit unskilled migration more, we might be able to let in skilled people without them being fixed to a specific job.
@JBriskin How you do the maths is relatively unimportant. Unfortunately, finding the right questions seems to be almost impossible for those on the "blue side". Economic "autism", but there is not much a pragmatic communist can do, except patiently point out the problem in the hope they will see the light.
@JBriskin How you do the maths is relatively unimportant. Unfortunately, finding the right questions seems to be almost impossible for those on the "blue side". Economic "autism", but there is not much a pragmatic communist can do, except patiently point out the problem in the hope they will see the light.
@stodge - Representation is not derived purely from the geographic concentration of the like-minded, it is derived from a combination of the total vote and its geographical distribution. One can debate whether that's a good thing or not (some electoral systems are explicitly designed to work like this), but the central point remains: no-one is disenfranchised, they just didn't happen to vote for the winning candidate or, at a national level, the winning party.
@Socrates - Re: 'Even in the RT clip you show, the old guy speaking says that there is a rebel base down the road and it's quite possible the guy pulled the trigger a few seconds late. You seem like a decent bloke LuckyGuy, but you're allowing your biases to prejudice interpretation of facts. You can look at the very street and see most of it is standing, even as RT says "entire village" in its banner. In Damascus, entire neighbourhoods were flattened. The RT even refers to the pro-Russia militias as "self-defence forces". You're being shown pure propaganda.'
Thank you for the endorsement -you seem like a nice guy too. That search was a 2 minute google; I was genuinely surprised you seemed to believe that civilian areas were not being shelled. I am fully aware that RT is very pro-Russia biased, and I read it in that light, but I'm not sure that you are aware that sources like the DT (not to mention any mainstream US source) offer coverage that is every bit as slanted in its approach.
I also think your profound Atlanticism, which I am sure does you credit, is blinding you to the the atrocious actions of the United States (and those pulled along in its wake) in what appears to be a desperate push to secure its global hegemony whilst it can still afford its massive military spending commitments. This includes the encirclement of China and Russia, the domination of Africa, and the re-ordering of the Middle East along sectarian and pro-US lines -all of which has been laid out in publicly available policy documents. To this end, the US has exercised 'soft power' in these regions, sponsoring 'pro-democracy' movements, dissatisfied ethnic groups, corrupt regimes, and indeed groups that we would regard as terrorist.
Victoria Nuland is on record in a leaked conversation basically forming the new Government of Ukraine (before the old one was gone). She states that 5 billion has been invested over a period of years to bring this about. The validity of the 'fuck the eu' tape has not been questioned. Now you tell me, if Russia spent 5 billion sponsoring 'pro-change' groups in Canada, before finally supporting (indeed insisting upon) a change of regime, covertly deciding who would be put into power, and then having them join a Russian Customs Union or similar -what would the US do with that on its border?
It is our ally the US that has filleted British companies like BP and Standard Chartered. It's American politicians that pontificate extensively on internal British issues. Our ally the US invaded Commonwealth territory, and failed and continues to fail to support our interests in the Falklands, despite Argentina being stridently anti-American. Why is Russia the big bogeyman?
@JBriskin There has been a reappraisal of some of Marx's work lately (especially after Piketty's book), by quite a few eminent economists. But no, my "playbook" comes from something someone may, or may not, have said a few thousand years ago.
Fascinating article about UK demography, maybe explaining labour's success in London.
High house prices in Cities, mean only wealthy people can live there, equals Labour electoral success, seems an odd conclusion to me.
In any case, hasn't the cycle of life always been:
young - live in cramped City accomodation, either on own or with friends not quite so young - share flat with girlfriend / wife in fairly central place have kids - leave central area for greener place with schools
Certainly, that has been the path my friends have mostly taken over the last quarter century.
That is true for a particular for the middle class, but even for them it was not always the case and it certainly wasn't for those a little lower down the scale, the artisan class for want of a better expression.
You need also to factor in the effect of social housing. A few months ago I saw a map which colour coded London by housing type, the extent of social housing was surprising.
One final thought on your model, when the children come along and thinking about schools becomes important, our nice middle class family get out of the city faster than you can say diversity. Why is that?
@JBriskin There has been a reappraisal of some of Marx's work lately (especially after Piketty's book), by quite a few eminent economists. But no, my "playbook" comes from something someone may, or may not, have said a few thousand years ago.
Well your ideology would contradict your religion - kind of like a politico oxymoron - I, for one, will let you off with that.
Re the venue for the PB get together in Ilkley tonight...when my two daughters were in the Sixth Form at Ilkley Grammar School, they bought that pub...every weekend... Have a pleasant evening...
And only one party was able to do so. The others would have needed 45% or more.
In a 3-party system there's an argument that a tied result is 33.3% each. It is then impossible to argue even that people voted "against" this or that party because the figures resolve the same way for everyone. What is ludicrous is the LibDem argument that a system that places the largest minor party permanently in power is somehow fair.
It's not the "Lib Dem argument" as you put it. Trying taking off your anti-LD blinkers for a moment and have a think. The current FPTP system places the largest minority party in power as well (no one has won an absolute majority of votes cast since 1935). The Conservatives ruled for 18 years as the largest minority Party as did Labour for 13 years because FPTP gave them a majority in seats out of proportion to the actual votes cast.
@JBriskin It's the great enigma of Pragmatic Communism, some of us are Zen Christians, so rather than argue about atheism and religion, we decided to prove Jesus was actually a communist! We see this as a way of maximizing our vote.
That would follow only in the very narrow hypothetical that I posited, where Party C stays in power off a 2% poll share...
Perhaps the problem here is that you came up with a crap example?
You can come up with crap examples for any voting system. In FPTP with four-party politics it is possible for one party to win an overall majority on 15% of the vote. Is that important in judging whether it is a good system? I'd argue not.
What matters in my view are a few things:
1. What choices the voting system gives individual voters.
2. What sort of campaign the voting system encourages in the parties.
3. Whether the voting system makes it easy to hold governments, politicians and parties to account.
So, for example, I loathe the closed list PR system used for the EU elections in Britain, because the parties determine the order of their candidates on the list, and so the number one candidate for a major party in a region like London is very hard for the voters to remove from office. Thus it fails on 3.
FPTP severely restricts the choices available to individual voters on the basis of whether they live in a marginal constituency. It also seems to encourage very negative campaigns, where parties vie to encourage tactical voting to stop another party on the basis that an alternative party has no chance of winning. Thus it fails on 1 and 2.
STV has no such defects. Voters can vote for precisely what they want, without having to guess how other voters will vote. They can vote for a party, but against a particular candidate of that party, or for a particular candidate of a party but not for the other candidates of that party. So it is great on 1.
Because there is no risk of splitting the anti-whoever vote, all the nonsense about bar charts is forgotten, and candidates and parties have to provide voters with positive reasons to vote for them above the alternatives. Of course, since the absence of a negative is taken to be a positive, this does not eliminate negative campaigning entirely - and nor should it - but it creates a better balance.
@stodge - Representation is not derived purely from the geographic concentration of the like-minded, it is derived from a combination of the total vote and its geographical distribution. One can debate whether that's a good thing or not (some electoral systems are explicitly designed to work like this), but the central point remains: no-one is disenfranchised, they just didn't happen to vote for the winning candidate or, at a national level, the winning party.
As I said earlier, my use of the term "disenfranchised" was inaccurate in its strictest sense. "Unrepresented" might work better. The central argument still stands. I may note for the winning candidate nationally or the winning party nationally but in a democratic system I want my vote to be added to the national total for my party for which (and we can debate thresholds and their validity another day) some form of representation should be awarded.
That is why I support a more proportional system than FPTP or AV and I would argue exactly the same should apply for a Labour voter in Sutton or a Conservative voter in Cheltenham.
I like the fact that there is a strong constituency link and that there is a bonus to the winner.
But each constituency should, if possible, be broadly similar in size. If anything I'd rather do it on votes cast to create an incentive to increase voter participation in heartland seats
So what you're saying is that if even more Conservatives turn out and vote in Beaconsfield, Buckingham or Bexhill, the Conservatives should get a further bonus on top of winning the seat.
No: what I'm saying is that when the Boundary Commission reviews constituencies they should base the seat size on the average votes cast in the last (say) 2 elections rather than on number of residents.
One of the problems - which I think leads to a lot of the perceived "unfairness" is differential turnout. It seems to be that there is a positive good from encouraging people to vote. At the moment, however, as OGH endlessly reminds us, there is absolutely no point in spending time or money campaigning in safe seats. Creating an incentive to increase turnout in safe seats is a good thing.
Party A has a seat, Party C has a seat but more people have actually voted for Party B but thanks to FPTP they have nothing. In this example, I've disenfranchised the largest minority of voters - FPTP is also extremely good at disenfranchising smaller minorities as well.
I think you are approaching it the wrong way round.
I'd rather strength the role of communities and the local MP. The problem is that the executive (and parties) dominate parliament to such an extent that the constituency representation role is much less significant - all too often MPs become glorified case workers. While they can be very valuable in that role, their fundamental purpose is to represent the interests of their community in Parliament.
The problem with national PR systems is that they may be "fairer" on a national level, but they ignore the fact that - for example - Basingstoke has very different interests to Kensington or the Chilterns. They may all vote for the same party, but it should be possible for their local representatives to stand up and fight for something that matters for the constituency & be rewarded for doing so.
Slightly off topic: In the last five YG polls, The Tories are averaging 17% of 2010 LibDems (DKs excluded). This is up from 13.7% in June, and about 11% in July last year. Labour is pretty steady on the low thirties, having been in the 40s often in 2012.
This means that the Labour advantage over the Tories among 2010 LibDems has (temporarily?) reduced from about 3:1 to about 2:1.
This may not mean people are switching (though UKIp seems down a bit). The number of 2010 LibDems who say they wont vote has declined by 3/4 points. These could have broken disproportionately to Tories - or of course, if could be a (somewhat sustained) polling blip. One worth keeping an eye on, though.
Hopi, this is kind of in line with what I was expecting could happen as the election nears. If you start from the assumption that the LibDems is comprised of those voters who, if pushed to choose, are more sympathetic to Labour (probably the majority) and those who are more sympathetic to the Tories (a smaller but still sizeable minority) - with another big piece of the pie who would go Green.
Those who were more aligned to Labour left in a huff when the Party went into Coalition. Those more aligned to the Tories stayed as LibDems because hey, they were in Coalition so didn't have any reason to leave.
However, as the General election looms, those who are more aligned to the Tories see the LibDems sliding in the polls, probably to the point where the option of the LibDem/Tory Coalition continuing is receding from the list of options. So to stop a Labour Govt., these Tory-leaning LibDems might be deciding that in 2015, they are going to have to vote Tory to stop a Labour majority - and have any chance of the Tories and an admittedly much-reduced LibDem contingent trying to prevent Ed Miliband becoming PM.
And only one party was able to do so. The others would have needed 45% or more.
In a 3-party system there's an argument that a tied result is 33.3% each. It is then impossible to argue even that people voted "against" this or that party because the figures resolve the same way for everyone. What is ludicrous is the LibDem argument that a system that places the largest minor party permanently in power is somehow fair.
It's not the "Lib Dem argument" as you put it. Trying taking off your anti-LD blinkers for a moment and have a think. The current FPTP system places the largest minority party in power as well (no one has won an absolute majority of votes cast since 1935). The Conservatives ruled for 18 years as the largest minority Party as did Labour for 13 years because FPTP gave them a majority in seats out of proportion to the actual votes cast.
True enough. But the Lib Dems only chalked up 20%+ vote shares precisely because they weren't likely to get into power. (qv. UKIP today).
That would follow only in the very narrow hypothetical that I posited, where Party C stays in power off a 2% poll share...
Perhaps the problem here is that you came up with a crap example?
You can come up with crap examples for any voting system. In FPTP with four-party politics it is possible for one party to win an overall majority on 15% of the vote. Is that important in judging whether it is a good system? I'd argue not.
What matters in my view are a few things:
1. What choices the voting system gives individual voters.
2. What sort of campaign the voting system encourages in the parties.
3. Whether the voting system makes it easy to hold governments, politicians and parties to account.
So, for example, I loathe the closed list PR system used for the EU elections in Britain, because the parties determine the order of their candidates on the list, and so the number one candidate for a major party in a region like London is very hard for the voters to remove from office. Thus it fails on 3.
FPTP severely restricts the choices available to individual voters on the basis of whether they live in a marginal constituency. It also seems to encourage very negative campaigns, where parties vie to encourage tactical voting to stop another party on the basis that an alternative party has no chance of winning. Thus it fails on 1 and 2.
STV has no such defects. Voters can vote for precisely what they want, without having to guess how other voters will vote. They can vote for a party, but against a particular candidate of that party, or for a particular candidate of a party but not for the other candidates of that party. So it is great on 1.
Because there is no risk of splitting the anti-whoever vote, all the nonsense about bar charts is forgotten, and candidates and parties have to provide voters with positive reasons to vote for them above the alternatives. Of course, since the absence of a negative is taken to be a positive, this does not eliminate negative campaigning entirely - and nor should it - but it creates a better balance.
The defect of STV is however that left-wing voters have a choice of leftist parties to whom they can transfer their vote - Labour, LD, BNP, Green, SNP, PC, etc - whereas right wing voters don't. It is therefore only better than the others in the perception of those who actually have a second choice candidate they'd be prepared to support. It's thus an oxymoron because if your "single" vote is "transferable" it gets counted twice.
@JBriskin It's the great enigma of Pragmatic Communism, some of us are Zen Christians, so rather than argue about atheism and religion, we decided to prove Jesus was actually a communist! We see this as a way of maximizing our vote.
I kind of thought Jesus was a bit of a commie, because of that temple bit where he gets angry. We've been known to take our cue from Revelations in this flat
Those who were more aligned to Labour left in a huff when the Party went into Coalition. Those more aligned to the Tories stayed as LibDems because hey, they were in Coalition so didn't have any reason to leave.
However, as the General election looms, those who are more aligned to the Tories see the LibDems sliding in the polls, probably to the point where the option of the LibDem/Tory Coalition continuing is receding from the list of options. So to stop a Labour Govt., these Tory-leaning LibDems might be deciding that in 2015, they are going to have to vote Tory to stop a Labour majority - and have any chance of the Tories and an admittedly much-reduced LibDem contingent trying to prevent Ed Miliband becoming PM.
There's another problem with FPTP. It's the power that the system gives to the party machine, since effectively a parry's candidate is chosen by a few activists (except invert unusual cases). The "ordinary" voter is left voting for some of who they may disapprove, but they are the party's candidate. An example would be europhilia or -phobia. A pro-Europe Conservative in Douglas Carswell's constituency, for example has a difficult choice!
@JBriskin Angry about money lenders using the temple to show their "honesty"? yup, seems pretty left wing to me. Jesus scourged them, George gives them a slap on the wrists. We do indeed live in more enlightened times (some might say unfortunately).
I don't have time today to get into another deep conversation, but I'd like to pick up in more detail at some other point. Just to give a brief overview of my views:
- I accept that some stray shells have hit civilian areas, but the Ukrainian government is not aiming at them. - This contrasts with Assad who deliberately flattened whole neighbourhoods. - While I believe that certain Western private sources do have biases, I don't believe this compares to government mouthpieces in most cases. (Exceptions like Fox do exist.) - I am indeed an Atlanticist, but I am very critical when the US does commit atrocities. I was appalled by Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition and the torture carried out in Guatanamo. - I don't think there is anything wrong with sponsoring liberal democratic movements around the world. Human rights, democratic rights and civil liberties are deserved by all, and it is perfectly reasonable to help civic society organisations lobby for these. - I also think countries like Ukraine should be sovereign to choose their international alliances freely, without being seen as "in Russia's camp". If Canada was an autocratic power and Russia sponsored democratic rights and then friendship with the resulting government that came to power, that would be fine. - I also believe that trying to intervene diplomatically when a country is on the edge of collapse, as Ukraine was, is perfectly reasonable. I believe this is what the Nuland tape was showing - a potential route out of the crisis. - The US has tried to provide a defence ring round China, but this is to protect against China's aggressive expansion in the South China sea. It is entirely fair and reasonable to protect against that. - I don't believe the US is trying to carve up the Middle East on sectarian lines. They could have easily done that with Iraq years ago. Instead they are now investing a lot of money to back up the Iraqi national army.
STV has no such defects. Voters can vote for precisely what they want, without having to guess how other voters will vote. They can vote for a party, but against a particular candidate of that party, or for a particular candidate of a party but not for the other candidates of that party. So it is great on 1.
If there was to be electoral reform - and there should be a high barrier to a fundamental change - then multi-member STV would seem to be one of the best options out there. The count is a little complicated, but I doubt that most voters care about the entrails of democracy that much
And only one party was able to do so. The others would have needed 45% or more.
In a 3-party system there's an argument that a tied result is 33.3% each. It is then impossible to argue even that people voted "against" this or that party because the figures resolve the same way for everyone. What is ludicrous is the LibDem argument that a system that places the largest minor party permanently in power is somehow fair.
It's not the "Lib Dem argument" as you put it. Trying taking off your anti-LD blinkers for a moment and have a think. The current FPTP system places the largest minority party in power as well (no one has won an absolute majority of votes cast since 1935). The Conservatives ruled for 18 years as the largest minority Party as did Labour for 13 years because FPTP gave them a majority in seats out of proportion to the actual votes cast.
They're only "largest minority" parties because there are frivolous third, fourth, and nth parties, with no prospect of or claim on power, but who insist that somehow, their paltry poll showing delegitimises the result.
There have been seats where the winner's vote fell below 50% because of the votes accumulated by stupid parties. This doesn't mean they hold their seats without democratic legitimacy. It means that while we tolerate the existence of buffoons such as the Fancy Dress Party, the Sunshine Party, the Silly Party, the Hyppo Party, the Lorimer Brizbeep Science-Fiction Loony Party, the All Night Party, the Dog Lovers' Party, and the Monster Raving Loony Party, we're entitled to ignore them.
@stodge - We're not going to agree on this, because you are starting from the premise that the system should be proportional (or more proportional than the current system) in terms of number of MPs, and therefore by definition you're not going to like a less proportional system. It's a circular argument, of course.
I'm starting from the premise that to govern (and therefore, by extension, to vote) is to choose, in particular to choose between two, three, or more different and to a large extent incompatible alternatives. From my point of view, the absolutely crucial point is that adding more MPs from one of the second- or third- or fourth-placed party doesn't make this CHOICE any fairer or more representative - it potentially just deadlocks it; the choice still has to be made, and you can't reconcile the irreconcilable.
Incidentally I would add that the LibDems have had a wonderful opportunity since May 2010 to convince the country that your view is right, and that I am wrong. The coalition is an excellent example of your position made flesh - for the first time in yonks, we have a government in which an absolute majority of voters are 'represented'.
The bad news from the LibDems' point of view is that they seem to have convinced voters that the last thing we want is a repeat of this new-fangled parties-working-together New Politics malarkey. As I've posted many times, my personal view is that this is largely the LibDems' own fault for getting their positioning wrong and being relentlessly negative about their own role in government, but it's also partly an illustration of the intrinsic problem in coalition politics, at least in the UK political tradition.
A nice irony is that I'm one of the few people who think it's been a massive success!
That would follow only in the very narrow hypothetical that I posited, where Party C stays in power off a 2% poll share...
Perhaps the problem here is that you came up with a crap example?
You can come up with crap examples for any voting system. In FPTP with four-party politics it is possible for one party to win an overall majority on 15% of the vote. Is that important in judging whether it is a good system? I'd argue not.
What matters in my view are a few things:
1. What choices the voting system gives individual voters.
2. What sort of campaign the voting system encourages in the parties.
3. Whether the voting system makes it easy to hold governments, politicians and parties to account.
So, for example, I loathe the closed list PR system used for the EU elections in Britain, because the parties determine the order of their candidates on the list, and so the number one candidate for a major party in a region like London is very hard for the voters to remove from office. Thus it fails on 3.
FPTP severely restricts the choices available to individual voters on the basis of whether they live in a marginal constituency. It also seems to encourage very negative campaigns, where parties vie to encourage tactical voting to stop another party on the basis that an alternative party has no chance of winning. Thus it fails on 1 and 2.
STV has no such defects. Voters can vote for precisely what they want, without having to guess how other voters will vote. They can vote for a party, but against a particular candidate of that party, or for a particular candidate of a party but not for the other candidates of that party. So it is great on 1.
Because there is no risk of splitting the anti-whoever vote, all the nonsense about bar charts is forgotten, and candidates and parties have to provide voters with positive reasons to vote for them above the alternatives. Of course, since the absence of a negative is taken to be a positive, this does not eliminate negative campaigning entirely - and nor should it - but it creates a better balance.
The defect of STV is however that left-wing voters have a choice of leftist parties to whom they can transfer their vote - Labour, LD, BNP, Green, SNP, PC, etc - whereas right wing voters don't. It is therefore only better than the others in the perception of those who actually have a second choice candidate they'd be prepared to support. It's thus an oxymoron because if your "single" vote is "transferable" it gets counted twice.
Trolling? BNP is right wing; SNP arguably is; LD is part of a right-wing government even as we speak; UKIP is missing from your list.
You can come up with crap examples for any voting system. In FPTP with four-party politics it is possible for one party to win an overall majority on 15% of the vote. Is that important in judging whether it is a good system? I'd argue not.
Actually, you can achieve it on 12.6% of the vote:
i.e. 25.01% in half the seats + 1 and 0% in the other half - 1.
No: what I'm saying is that when the Boundary Commission reviews constituencies they should base the seat size on the average votes cast in the last (say) 2 elections rather than on number of residents.
But that encuourages game playing too: what happens if Labour, the LibDems and UKIP all decided not to fight (say) Huntingdon because it was such a safe Conservative seat? That would reduce the number of votes in the seat (potentitally dramatically if there was no one else standing in the seat whatsoever), and therefore cause the 'boundries' of Huntingdon to expand.
Which I'm afraid tell us precisely squat, and admits it's telling us precisely squat. Of course this money went to the promotion of 'peace and security' -what do you think they would call it. This sentence is particularly risible:
'But even if it that were so, the money in question was spent over more than 20 years. Yanukovych was elected in 2010. So any connection between the protests and the $5 billion is inaccurate.'
-the longevity is the entire point! It's the long term sponsorship and placement of assets that constitutes destabilisation -the clue is in the title!! It may be enough for the residents of Tampa Bay to sleep soundly, but it's not for me, and shouldn't be for you, or anyone serious.
Fascinating article about UK demography, maybe explaining labour's success in London.
High house prices in Cities, mean only wealthy people can live there, equals Labour electoral success, seems an odd conclusion to me.
In any case, hasn't the cycle of life always been:
young - live in cramped City accomodation, either on own or with friends not quite so young - share flat with girlfriend / wife in fairly central place have kids - leave central area for greener place with schools
Certainly, that has been the path my friends have mostly taken over the last quarter century.
That is true for a particular for the middle class, but even for them it was not always the case and it certainly wasn't for those a little lower down the scale, the artisan class for want of a better expression.
You need also to factor in the effect of social housing. A few months ago I saw a map which colour coded London by housing type, the extent of social housing was surprising.
One final thought on your model, when the children come along and thinking about schools becomes important, our nice middle class family get out of the city faster than you can say diversity. Why is that?
If you could dig that map up, I'd love to see it.
Mr. Socrates, The original was I think on a Blog by a chap called Neal Hudson, which has now been taken down. However, a less interactive version than I remember can be found here:
People holding this book aloft as a work of genius, as so much of the metro media elite have done, need their head examining. FT look at the data showed it to be extremely dodgy to put it mildly (a bit like the last popular book on this subject, whose name escapes me, but was shown to basically just ignore data from countries whose data didn't fit their model.)
Five billion over twenty five years really isn't very much. It's also designed to help develop civil society, a stabilising force, not "destabilisation". Do you really think places like Poland and the Baltics would have been better off had we not helped the democratic forces in those countries push for reform?
The Financial Times points out data that may be inaccurate? They could have read the book and seen the bit where Piketty made all his data open to scrutiny, and asked people to suggest ways to improve it?
No: what I'm saying is that when the Boundary Commission reviews constituencies they should base the seat size on the average votes cast in the last (say) 2 elections rather than on number of residents.
But that encuourages game playing too: what happens if Labour, the LibDems and UKIP all decided not to fight (say) Huntingdon because it was such a safe Conservative seat? That would reduce the number of votes in the seat (potentitally dramatically if there was no one else standing in the seat whatsoever), and therefore cause the 'boundries' of Huntingdon to expand.
That article makes a standard Polly article look balanced and impartial.
Donor dinners are as corrupt as Fifa, but only the Tories have them apparently. No mention Labour having their own and in the past under Tony he used to raise millions.
Dirty tricks, only the Tories do that, I mean Labour officials weren't planning to have an industrial scale smear operation at the last GE...
As for alleged child abuse scandal, I think somebody as in the know as her, will be well aware that those under investigation are not from one party.
No: what I'm saying is that when the Boundary Commission reviews constituencies they should base the seat size on the average votes cast in the last (say) 2 elections rather than on number of residents.
But that encuourages game playing too: what happens if Labour, the LibDems and UKIP all decided not to fight (say) Huntingdon because it was such a safe Conservative seat? That would reduce the number of votes in the seat (potentitally dramatically if there was no one else standing in the seat whatsoever), and therefore cause the 'boundries' of Huntingdon to expand.
Basically, you want potentially more Tory seats !
Surby
Setting partisan politics aside, more Tory seats would of course benefit the country.
She is obviously being partisan, but stuff like this should concern us all:
"The full guest list is still kept from the public eye, but we know they had Russian millionaires - including Putin’s judo partner – as well as Slovenian and Belarus magnates. There was the Arab rich alongside home-grown hedge fund gamblers and other businessmen such as lap-dance club owner Peter Stringfellow."
I really don't see why the foreign rich should be able to donate money to our political parties. It is a corruption of our democracy. Before long you get to the situation where our political elites are more interested in catering to them than they are the general public.
We urgently need a law where only registered British voters can give to UK political parties.
@JBriskin It's the great enigma of Pragmatic Communism, some of us are Zen Christians, so rather than argue about atheism and religion, we decided to prove Jesus was actually a communist! We see this as a way of maximizing our vote.
You're a Zen Christian? That might explain why we seem to agree so often when we supposedly shouldn't. I from the Taoist rather than Zen wing myself, but with Oxford movement leanings (I do like my bells and smells).
» show previous quotes You need to remember that the LibDems only support fair voting systems when it is in their interest.
Oh dear! Charles does seem to move in very restricted circles. He really does need to get out more, and meet some Lib Dems and find out what they really think.
I remember on one occasion a Tory poster here asserted that Lib Dems would not be in favour of a system of PR, if it meant the advent of BNP MPs. He was met by a chorus of replies from Lib Dem posters, refuting his claim. If there is an important view-point in the country, it ought to be represented in Parliament.
At present, if we had a system of PR in our elections, the major benficiaries would almost certainly be UKIP and the Green Party. And the Lib Dems would probably lose out, along with the Conservatives and Labour.
@AveryLP "...more Tory seats would benefit the country." Unfortunately these days, it's more than likely a foreign country. The current and tides of investment flow?
Booze is one of the hardest drugs out there. It is also widely availble and made to taste nice
And thank goodness for that, and for the legion of responsible publicans that monitor and regulate it's ingestion. Just need to stop supermarkets, garages and corner shops selling it on the cheap and we will all be happy.
Isn't it also the case that Breweries and Publicans need to be more moderate in pricing their product? In my local Aldi single 50cl bottles of Old Speckled Hen, one of my favourites and a brew emanating from your parts I believe, is priced at 125p on a long term, non-special price basis and therefore presumably not a loss leader, which is equivalent to 142p per pint. Doubtless the pub trade (although not the tenant of a tied house I readily concede) must surely be able to purchase this in bulk in draft, i.e.in barrels at a considerably lower price. It's quite a big ask to expect would-be customers, at least here in London, to pay around 370p per pint, that's more than two and a half times as much for the privilege of supping this admittedly fine ale in their local hostelry.
@HurstLlama Being pragmatists means we can ignore religious schism, and concentrate on where we agree. This saves several hours of the party conference.
That article makes a standard Polly article look balanced and impartial.
Donor dinners are as corrupt as Fifa, but only the Tories have them apparently. No mention Labour having their own and in the past under Tony he used to raise millions.
Dirty tricks, only the Tories do that, I mean Labour officials weren't planning to have an industrial scale smear operation at the last GE...
As for alleged child abuse scandal, I think somebody as in the know as her, will be well aware that those under investigation are not from one party.
Speaking of New Labour, one obvious defence for "cash for influence" accusations around that Tory dinner is that donors had other ends in mind -- cash for honours.
The child abuse stories and cover-ups might yet decide the next election, depending what is found.
People holding this book aloft as a work of genius, as so much of the metro media elite have done, need their head examining. FT look at the data showed it to be extremely dodgy to put it mildly (a bit like the last popular book on this subject, whose name escapes me, but was shown to basically just ignore data from countries whose data didn't fit their model.)
Piketty responded to that FT attack and demolished virtually all their arguments. Turned out that an economist that had been examining this stuff for years knew his sources better than a journalist doing a single story.
Booze is one of the hardest drugs out there. It is also widely availble and made to taste nice
And thank goodness for that, and for the legion of responsible publicans that monitor and regulate it's ingestion. Just need to stop supermarkets, garages and corner shops selling it on the cheap and we will all be happy.
Isn't it also the case that Breweries and Publicans need to be more moderate in pricing their product? In my local Aldi single 50cl bottles of Old Speckled Hen, one of my favourites and a brew emanating from your parts I believe, is priced at 125p on a long term, non-special price basis and therefore presumably not a loss leader, which is equivalent to 142p per pint. Doubtless the pub trade (although not the tenant of a tied house I readily concede) must surely be able to purchase this in bulk in draft, i.e.in barrels at a considerably lower price. It's quite a big ask to expect would-be customers, at least here in London, to pay around 370p per pint, that's more than two and a half times as much for the privilege of supping this admittedly fine ale in their local hostelry.
Blame the PubCos, Mr. Putney, and for them blame the idiot Lord Young and the Conservative Party. Bloody fools meddling with things they did not understand and unleashing the powers of darkness upon us innocent drinkers.
She is obviously being partisan, but stuff like this should concern us all:
"The full guest list is still kept from the public eye, but we know they had Russian millionaires - including Putin’s judo partner – as well as Slovenian and Belarus magnates. There was the Arab rich alongside home-grown hedge fund gamblers and other businessmen such as lap-dance club owner Peter Stringfellow."
I really don't see why the foreign rich should be able to donate money to our political parties. It is a corruption of our democracy. Before long you get to the situation where our political elites are more interested in catering to them than they are the general public.
We urgently need a law where only registered British voters can give to UK political parties.
We don't "urgently need" any such law, Socrates.
Current rules are both adequate and clear.
Here is an extract from guidance provided by the Electoral Commission to UK political parties:
Who can you accept a donation from? You must only accept donations from permissible donors.
A permissible donor is: • An individual registered on a UK electoral register, including overseas electors and those leaving bequests.
• Most UK-registered companies.
• A Great Britain registered political party.
• A UK-registered trade union.
• A UK-registered building society.
• A UK-registered limited liability partnership (LLP) that carries on business in the UK.
• A UK-registered friendly society.
• A UK-based unincorporated association that carries on business or other activities in the UK.
You can also accept donations from some types of trust, and from certain public funds.
The Russian and East European 'oligarchs' were only present at the charity dinners for the good conversation and convivial atmosphere.
So why are Arab and Eastern European magnates being invited to fundraising dinners?
No doubt, as so often, the Guardian account (on which I think the dreadful Ms Alibhai Brown is relying) is written in a way designed to mislead as much as inform.
The Conservatives really don't need any dodgy money. They are raking in entirely legit. donations - all of course fully declared and disclosed to the public - from lots of people very worried about the risk of the country taking a turn for the worse in 2015. It's fortunate that amongst these public-spirited people, there are some who make substantial donations, which helps to reduce the systematic pro-Labour bias a little bit.
So why are Arab and Eastern European magnates being invited to fundraising dinners?
No doubt, as so often, the Guardian account (on which I think the dreadful Ms Alibhai Brown is relying) is written in a way designed to mislead as much as inform.
The Conservatives really don't need any dodgy money. They are raking in entirely legit. donations - all of course fully declared and disclosed to the public - from lots of people very worried about the country taking a turn for the worse in 2015. It's fortunate that amongst these public-spirited people, there are some who make substantial donations, which helps to reduce the systematic pro-Labour bias a little bit.
You still didn't answer the question. Why were Arab and Eastern European magnates being invited to a fundraising dinner, if they can't donate any money?
So why are Arab and Eastern European magnates being invited to fundraising dinners?
No doubt, as so often, the Guardian account (on which I think the dreadful Ms Alibhai Brown is relying) is written in a way designed to mislead as much as inform.
The Conservatives really don't need any dodgy money. They are raking in entirely legit. donations - all of course fully declared and disclosed to the public - from lots of people very worried about the country taking a turn for the worse in 2015. It's fortunate that amongst these public-spirited people, there are some who make substantial donations, which helps to reduce the systematic pro-Labour bias a little bit.
You still didn't answer the question. Why were Arab and Eastern European magnates being invited to a fundraising dinner, if they can't donate any money?
You still didn't answer the question. Why were Arab and Eastern European magnates being invited to a fundraising dinner, if they can't donate any money?
I would imagine they are guests of people who can, but I have no personal knowledge. I wasn't there!
It does, however, sound like a very interesting and varied guest list. I actually think Avery is not too far from the mark.
Comments
Intended UKIP voters in safe Conservative seats like my own (or Labour ones come to that) don't matter. What is important is how many there are in the marginals and places like Crawley. Are there enough of them to swing the result, or be enticed back into their "natural" fold? I don't know, but I think it might be important.
I like the fact that there is a strong constituency link and that there is a bonus to the winner.
But each constituency should, if possible, be broadly similar in size. If anything I'd rather do it on votes cast to create an incentive to increase voter participation in heartland seats
"It would resemble the outcome of the battle of Waterloo, where the best army in the campaign was defeated by the second best with the assistance of the worst."
If you will pardon the crudity, "Bollocks". An army is made up of many things; training equipment, leadership, and the basic stubbornness of the ordinary soldier. If the Frogs were so good as you say they would have beaten the British* army before the Prussians got on to the field. It didn't, therefore it was not the best army in the campaign.
*The KGL and the Cloggies did a spiffing job and were a major factor.
Hhmmm ....
I'm not wholly opposed but I think before we get to that point, there's the much more fundamental question of the fact that in what is supposedly a "General" Election but is in fact 650 by-elections held on the same day, millions of people will cast their vote for it to have not the least significance or relevance.
Before we over-enfranchise the heartlands, we need to enfranchise the currently effectively disenfranchised. It's not difficult - the current system relies on the geographic concentration of votes and that probably reflects the socio-economic polarisation of the country.
To play old numpty Bond's game, let's have two constituencies and three parties in each. In Seat A, Party A wins 20,000 votes, Party B 15,000 votes and Party C 5,000 votes. In Seat B, Party A wins 5,000 votes, Party B 15,000 votes and Party C 20,000 votes.
Party A has a seat, Party C has a seat but more people have actually voted for Party B but thanks to FPTP they have nothing. In this example, I've disenfranchised the largest minority of voters - FPTP is also extremely good at disenfranchising smaller minorities as well.
Another one who cannot name a single senior Labour figure who has said Labour are doomed. All morning and not a single name has emerged.
No doubt you will now accuse me of 'over-posting'. Your being the PB Tories' self-appointed moderator of dissent. LOL.
In return Scotland will export their AMS electoral system that maintains a viable constituency link with a high degree of proportionality and also allows for majority government within reasonable bounds.
The early 90s was arguably the most egalitarian period in recent British history, with the 1992 election featuring three party leaders from ordinary backgrounds.
This means that the Labour advantage over the Tories among 2010 LibDems has (temporarily?) reduced from about 3:1 to about 2:1.
This may not mean people are switching (though UKIp seems down a bit). The number of 2010 LibDems who say they wont vote has declined by 3/4 points. These could have broken disproportionately to Tories - or of course, if could be a (somewhat sustained) polling blip. One worth keeping an eye on, though.
Of course, the result would have been different if the voting system had been different (or at least, it would have been if everyone had voted in exactly the same way under the different system, which is another heroic assumption). Or they might have been different if the constituencies had been drawn up to favour them. But so what?
Is Jeremy Browne an "Orange Booker"? They had some novel ideas on the future of the health service I believe.
If so, why are the "lefties" to blame for the "right wing Liberals"?
And don't, be silly, who expects senior figures to be letting their views be known, except anonymously, at this stage? But if you want a name here's a name: Jon Cruddas.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10941304/Ed-Miliband-is-being-gamed-out-warns-Cruddas.html
"In the new recording passed to the Telegraph, Mr Cruddas said that Mr Miliband was battling to unite “different camps” within the party, and struggling to manage the news cycle.
“He’s actually trying to unpack it, he’s trying to unpack it,” said Mr Cruddas. “But he just gets gamed out every day, every week because of the news cycle, the media, levels of intrusion, the party management side.”
“The fact that a lot of things haven’t really been reconciled – the different camps,” he added, as he spoke at the Labour activist gathering at the weekend."
I don't know
[They had some novel ideas on the future of the health service I believe.]
They wrote a whole book about it.
[If so, why are the "lefties" to blame for the "right wing Liberals"?]
I don't have a problem with right wing liberals - I have a problem with idiot lefties and their misunderstanding of economics which leads to half the population being intoxicated with garbage language.
However, we know from past experience, as quantified in Stephen Fisher's superb work, that it is unlikely that nothing else will change.
There's no guarantee of this, of course. It's not invariably true that those who say 'this time will be different' are wrong. But they usually are.
Re: Cruddas. Show me where in that article he says anything about Labour being doomed. In other words, put up or shut up.
You are clearly rattled. You are over-posting etc etc.
Just "venting" then were we?
Good man, carry on.
By the way, how do you explain the heroically barmy "Voting doesn't become invalidated because your candidate doesn't win" comment ? My vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate in East Ham next year will serve only one purpose (and it may not do that) and that's to save the deposit. It will be added to the party's national tally but that has zero relevance or significance in the FPTP system.
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When I say that you "overpost" I mean that you undermine your own position by constantly and anxiously re-stating it. Like you are doing now.
And don't, be silly, who expects senior figures to be letting their views be known, except anonymously, at this stage? But if you want a name here's a name: Jon Cruddas.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10941304/Ed-Miliband-is-being-gamed-out-warns-Cruddas.html
"In the new recording passed to the Telegraph, Mr Cruddas said that Mr Miliband was battling to unite “different camps” within the party, and struggling to manage the news cycle.
“He’s actually trying to unpack it, he’s trying to unpack it,” said Mr Cruddas. “But he just gets gamed out every day, every week because of the news cycle, the media, levels of intrusion, the party management side.”
“The fact that a lot of things haven’t really been reconciled – the different camps,” he added, as he spoke at the Labour activist gathering at the weekend."
There is endless drivel posted hourly by the PB Tories, yet I have never seen you accuse the likes of Scott_P of overposting rehashed slurry from others. Funny that.
Re: Cruddas. Show me where in that article he says anything about Labour being doomed. In other words, put up or shut up.
You are clearly rattled. You are over-posting etc etc.
In a 3-party system there's an argument that a tied result is 33.3% each. It is then impossible to argue even that people voted "against" this or that party because the figures resolve the same way for everyone. What is ludicrous is the LibDem argument that a system that places the largest minor party permanently in power is somehow fair.
Wellington thought his army was "infamous, weak and ill-equipped", so he didn't agree. He was outnumbered overall and specifically in artillery and light infantry; he had exactly one squadron of lancers; and he had no armoured cavalry at all, whereas the French had IIRC 14 regiments.
He won because Napoleon delegated operational command to incompetent subordinates. Wellington's 68,000 beat 62,000 French only because Ney mishandled the cavalry. Meanwhile 10,000 French held off 50,000 Prussians for most of the day.
You are perhaps familiar with the Hofschroer view of all this which reduces it, foolishly, to a numbers game. The fact is that Wellington fought two battles and won both, Blucher fought three and lost the two he fought alone, and the French fought four, won two (against the Prussians) and lost two (that involved Wellington).
The fairest inference one can draw is that Wellington's performance as a battle captain offset the mediocrity of his army, so while he didn't have the best army his army had the best commander.
Every single member of the Shadow Cabinet and all living former members of Labour governments believe that Miliband not only is the strongest leader that the party has ever had or will have, but represents a conceptual maximum of fitness for the job which could never even theoretically be exceeded between now and the heat death of the universe. That view will be triumphantly endorsed and vindicated when He ascends in Glory next May.
I am sorry to have made any posts which may have inadvertently suggested the contrary and profoundly regret any offence I may have caused.
1. Lefties like you cause problems because you don't understand economics
Which leads to 2. Language problems (because some people actually listen to you)
And then 3. J Browne gets confused, grows a beard and then shaves it off
4. No more Nhs
Leadership is one factor that influences voting, but if you ask "How will you vote?" first (as pollsters do) and then "Do you like X?" "What do you think about immigration?" and a host of other things, you have to assume they're factored into the first question plus various other things that pollster didn't ask. The Con/Lab voters who are thinking of returning from UKIP may be influenced by liking Cameron and disliking the Tory government respectively, for instance.
I'm eating a Tesco West Country Cheddar and Pickle sandwich as I write. I don't like that it's a bit messy, and the Cheddar's a bit boring. Regardless, however, I bought it because it's the best sandwich available near me and I do like pickle. A lot of voters think about political parties pretty much like that. Given FPTP, we have to, really.
Would you replace the NHS with the pre O'Bama care model?
I merely asked for the OP to back up his claim, a task he eschewed and you gallantly took up on his behalf. Sadly your venture ended in failure, but full marks for bravery.
And as for point 1, from my point of view, the problem lies with those on the right who "think" they know economics. But without being able to look at a few simple maths problems.
In other words, representation is derived purely from the geographic concentration of the like-minded. Get all your supporters into some seats and forget the others and that's how to play the FPTP game. An even distribution of support which might be numerically more significant but is geographically diverse is disadvantaged - that doesn't sound much like democracy, does it ?
It doesn't seem like the ideal system, but given the huge immigration from the EU we can't tackle, it seems like we don't have much choice. If we could limit unskilled migration more, we might be able to let in skilled people without them being fixed to a specific job.
How you do the maths is relatively unimportant.
Unfortunately, finding the right questions seems to be almost impossible for those on the "blue side".
Economic "autism", but there is not much a pragmatic communist can do, except patiently point out the problem in the hope they will see the light.
Well there is in Das Capital.
Is that your playbook?
: The Ashcroft National Poll will be released here at 4pm today with commentary at @ConHome"
twitter.com/LordAshcroft/status/486066577818021888
Thank you for the endorsement -you seem like a nice guy too. That search was a 2 minute google; I was genuinely surprised you seemed to believe that civilian areas were not being shelled. I am fully aware that RT is very pro-Russia biased, and I read it in that light, but I'm not sure that you are aware that sources like the DT (not to mention any mainstream US source) offer coverage that is every bit as slanted in its approach.
I also think your profound Atlanticism, which I am sure does you credit, is blinding you to the the atrocious actions of the United States (and those pulled along in its wake) in what appears to be a desperate push to secure its global hegemony whilst it can still afford its massive military spending commitments. This includes the encirclement of China and Russia, the domination of Africa, and the re-ordering of the Middle East along sectarian and pro-US lines -all of which has been laid out in publicly available policy documents. To this end, the US has exercised 'soft power' in these regions, sponsoring 'pro-democracy' movements, dissatisfied ethnic groups, corrupt regimes, and indeed groups that we would regard as terrorist.
Victoria Nuland is on record in a leaked conversation basically forming the new Government of Ukraine (before the old one was gone). She states that 5 billion has been invested over a period of years to bring this about. The validity of the 'fuck the eu' tape has not been questioned. Now you tell me, if Russia spent 5 billion sponsoring 'pro-change' groups in Canada, before finally supporting (indeed insisting upon) a change of regime, covertly deciding who would be put into power, and then having them join a Russian Customs Union or similar -what would the US do with that on its border?
It is our ally the US that has filleted British companies like BP and Standard Chartered. It's American politicians that pontificate extensively on internal British issues. Our ally the US invaded Commonwealth territory, and failed and continues to fail to support our interests in the Falklands, despite Argentina being stridently anti-American. Why is Russia the big bogeyman?
There has been a reappraisal of some of Marx's work lately (especially after Piketty's book), by quite a few eminent economists.
But no, my "playbook" comes from something someone may, or may not, have said a few thousand years ago.
Have a pleasant evening...
It's the great enigma of Pragmatic Communism, some of us are Zen Christians, so rather than argue about atheism and religion, we decided to prove Jesus was actually a communist!
We see this as a way of maximizing our vote.
You can come up with crap examples for any voting system. In FPTP with four-party politics it is possible for one party to win an overall majority on 15% of the vote. Is that important in judging whether it is a good system? I'd argue not.
What matters in my view are a few things:
1. What choices the voting system gives individual voters.
2. What sort of campaign the voting system encourages in the parties.
3. Whether the voting system makes it easy to hold governments, politicians and parties to account.
So, for example, I loathe the closed list PR system used for the EU elections in Britain, because the parties determine the order of their candidates on the list, and so the number one candidate for a major party in a region like London is very hard for the voters to remove from office. Thus it fails on 3.
FPTP severely restricts the choices available to individual voters on the basis of whether they live in a marginal constituency. It also seems to encourage very negative campaigns, where parties vie to encourage tactical voting to stop another party on the basis that an alternative party has no chance of winning. Thus it fails on 1 and 2.
STV has no such defects. Voters can vote for precisely what they want, without having to guess how other voters will vote. They can vote for a party, but against a particular candidate of that party, or for a particular candidate of a party but not for the other candidates of that party. So it is great on 1.
Because there is no risk of splitting the anti-whoever vote, all the nonsense about bar charts is forgotten, and candidates and parties have to provide voters with positive reasons to vote for them above the alternatives. Of course, since the absence of a negative is taken to be a positive, this does not eliminate negative campaigning entirely - and nor should it - but it creates a better balance.
That is why I support a more proportional system than FPTP or AV and I would argue exactly the same should apply for a Labour voter in Sutton or a Conservative voter in Cheltenham.
One of the problems - which I think leads to a lot of the perceived "unfairness" is differential turnout. It seems to be that there is a positive good from encouraging people to vote. At the moment, however, as OGH endlessly reminds us, there is absolutely no point in spending time or money campaigning in safe seats. Creating an incentive to increase turnout in safe seats is a good thing. I think you are approaching it the wrong way round.
I'd rather strength the role of communities and the local MP. The problem is that the executive (and parties) dominate parliament to such an extent that the constituency representation role is much less significant - all too often MPs become glorified case workers. While they can be very valuable in that role, their fundamental purpose is to represent the interests of their community in Parliament.
The problem with national PR systems is that they may be "fairer" on a national level, but they ignore the fact that - for example - Basingstoke has very different interests to Kensington or the Chilterns. They may all vote for the same party, but it should be possible for their local representatives to stand up and fight for something that matters for the constituency & be rewarded for doing so.
Those who were more aligned to Labour left in a huff when the Party went into Coalition. Those more aligned to the Tories stayed as LibDems because hey, they were in Coalition so didn't have any reason to leave.
However, as the General election looms, those who are more aligned to the Tories see the LibDems sliding in the polls, probably to the point where the option of the LibDem/Tory Coalition continuing is receding from the list of options. So to stop a Labour Govt., these Tory-leaning LibDems might be deciding that in 2015, they are going to have to vote Tory to stop a Labour majority - and have any chance of the Tories and an admittedly much-reduced LibDem contingent trying to prevent Ed Miliband becoming PM.
Theodora Clarke (Con, Bristol East)
Isobel Grant (Con, Bristol South)
Claire Hiscott (Con, Bristol West)
Peter Garbutt (Green, Sheffield Hallam)
Rita Wilcox (Green, Sheffield Heeley)
Rebecca Coulson (Con, City of Durham)
Chris Hampsheir (Con, Easington)
Grace Weaver (LD, Suffolk South)
Ross Thomson (Con, Aberdeen South)
Ann Steward (Con, Norfolk North)
Bim Afolami (Con, Lewisham Deptford)
James Symes (Con, Ealing Southall)
Graham Smith (Con, Torfaen)
Andrew Pointon (Green, Leeds West)
Tom Rubython (UKIP, Dorset Mid & Poole North)
Steve Emmens (UKIP, Norwich South)
Angry about money lenders using the temple to show their "honesty"? yup, seems pretty left wing to me.
Jesus scourged them, George gives them a slap on the wrists.
We do indeed live in more enlightened times (some might say unfortunately).
I don't have time today to get into another deep conversation, but I'd like to pick up in more detail at some other point. Just to give a brief overview of my views:
- I accept that some stray shells have hit civilian areas, but the Ukrainian government is not aiming at them.
- This contrasts with Assad who deliberately flattened whole neighbourhoods.
- While I believe that certain Western private sources do have biases, I don't believe this compares to government mouthpieces in most cases. (Exceptions like Fox do exist.)
- I am indeed an Atlanticist, but I am very critical when the US does commit atrocities. I was appalled by Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition and the torture carried out in Guatanamo.
- I don't think there is anything wrong with sponsoring liberal democratic movements around the world. Human rights, democratic rights and civil liberties are deserved by all, and it is perfectly reasonable to help civic society organisations lobby for these.
- I also think countries like Ukraine should be sovereign to choose their international alliances freely, without being seen as "in Russia's camp". If Canada was an autocratic power and Russia sponsored democratic rights and then friendship with the resulting government that came to power, that would be fine.
- I also believe that trying to intervene diplomatically when a country is on the edge of collapse, as Ukraine was, is perfectly reasonable. I believe this is what the Nuland tape was showing - a potential route out of the crisis.
- The US has tried to provide a defence ring round China, but this is to protect against China's aggressive expansion in the South China sea. It is entirely fair and reasonable to protect against that.
- I don't believe the US is trying to carve up the Middle East on sectarian lines. They could have easily done that with Iraq years ago. Instead they are now investing a lot of money to back up the Iraqi national army.
More on the $5 billion:
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/
There have been seats where the winner's vote fell below 50% because of the votes accumulated by stupid parties. This doesn't mean they hold their seats without democratic legitimacy. It means that while we tolerate the existence of buffoons such as the Fancy Dress Party, the Sunshine Party, the Silly Party, the Hyppo Party, the Lorimer Brizbeep Science-Fiction Loony Party, the All Night Party, the Dog Lovers' Party, and the Monster Raving Loony Party, we're entitled to ignore them.
I'm starting from the premise that to govern (and therefore, by extension, to vote) is to choose, in particular to choose between two, three, or more different and to a large extent incompatible alternatives. From my point of view, the absolutely crucial point is that adding more MPs from one of the second- or third- or fourth-placed party doesn't make this CHOICE any fairer or more representative - it potentially just deadlocks it; the choice still has to be made, and you can't reconcile the irreconcilable.
Incidentally I would add that the LibDems have had a wonderful opportunity since May 2010 to convince the country that your view is right, and that I am wrong. The coalition is an excellent example of your position made flesh - for the first time in yonks, we have a government in which an absolute majority of voters are 'represented'.
The bad news from the LibDems' point of view is that they seem to have convinced voters that the last thing we want is a repeat of this new-fangled parties-working-together New Politics malarkey. As I've posted many times, my personal view is that this is largely the LibDems' own fault for getting their positioning wrong and being relentlessly negative about their own role in government, but it's also partly an illustration of the intrinsic problem in coalition politics, at least in the UK political tradition.
A nice irony is that I'm one of the few people who think it's been a massive success!
i.e. 25.01% in half the seats + 1 and 0% in the other half - 1.
http://www.politicshome.com/link/653911
The nasty smell is coming from Labour!
'But even if it that were so, the money in question was spent over more than 20 years. Yanukovych was elected in 2010. So any connection between the protests and the $5 billion is inaccurate.'
-the longevity is the entire point! It's the long term sponsorship and placement of assets that constitutes destabilisation -the clue is in the title!! It may be enough for the residents of Tampa Bay to sleep soundly, but it's not for me, and shouldn't be for you, or anyone serious.
http://mappinglondon.co.uk/2014/mapping-the-census-for-london/
You might also be interested in this site which shows areas of relative deprivation, and not just for London
http://casa.oobrien.com/booth/
People holding this book aloft as a work of genius, as so much of the metro media elite have done, need their head examining. FT look at the data showed it to be extremely dodgy to put it mildly (a bit like the last popular book on this subject, whose name escapes me, but was shown to basically just ignore data from countries whose data didn't fit their model.)
Five billion over twenty five years really isn't very much. It's also designed to help develop civil society, a stabilising force, not "destabilisation". Do you really think places like Poland and the Baltics would have been better off had we not helped the democratic forces in those countries push for reform?
The Financial Times points out data that may be inaccurate? They could have read the book and seen the bit where Piketty made all his data open to scrutiny, and asked people to suggest ways to improve it?
Donor dinners are as corrupt as Fifa, but only the Tories have them apparently. No mention Labour having their own and in the past under Tony he used to raise millions.
Dirty tricks, only the Tories do that, I mean Labour officials weren't planning to have an industrial scale smear operation at the last GE...
As for alleged child abuse scandal, I think somebody as in the know as her, will be well aware that those under investigation are not from one party.
Setting partisan politics aside, more Tory seats would of course benefit the country.
She is obviously being partisan, but stuff like this should concern us all:
"The full guest list is still kept from the public eye, but we know they had Russian millionaires - including Putin’s judo partner – as well as Slovenian and Belarus magnates. There was the Arab rich alongside home-grown hedge fund gamblers and other businessmen such as lap-dance club owner Peter Stringfellow."
I really don't see why the foreign rich should be able to donate money to our political parties. It is a corruption of our democracy. Before long you get to the situation where our political elites are more interested in catering to them than they are the general public.
We urgently need a law where only registered British voters can give to UK political parties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Parties,_Elections_and_Referendums_Act_2000#Donations
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You need to remember that the LibDems only support fair voting systems when it is in their interest.
Oh dear! Charles does seem to move in very restricted circles. He really does need to get out more, and meet some Lib Dems and find out what they really think.
I remember on one occasion a Tory poster here asserted that Lib Dems would not be in favour of a system of PR, if it meant the advent of BNP MPs. He was met by a chorus of replies from Lib Dem posters, refuting his claim. If there is an important view-point in the country, it ought to be represented in Parliament.
At present, if we had a system of PR in our elections, the major benficiaries would almost certainly be UKIP and the Green Party. And the Lib Dems would probably lose out, along with the Conservatives and Labour.
I am still in favour of STV.
"...more Tory seats would benefit the country."
Unfortunately these days, it's more than likely a foreign country.
The current and tides of investment flow?
It's quite a big ask to expect would-be customers, at least here in London, to pay around 370p per pint, that's more than two and a half times as much for the privilege of supping this admittedly fine ale in their local hostelry.
Being pragmatists means we can ignore religious schism, and concentrate on where we agree.
This saves several hours of the party conference.
That flow is one way only if ed gets in. Still, it might cheapen up london house prices a bit.
The child abuse stories and cover-ups might yet decide the next election, depending what is found.
Current rules are both adequate and clear.
Here is an extract from guidance provided by the Electoral Commission to UK political parties:
Who can you accept a donation from?
You must only accept donations from permissible donors.
A permissible donor is:
• An individual registered on a UK electoral register, including overseas electors and those leaving bequests.
• Most UK-registered companies.
• A Great Britain registered political party.
• A UK-registered trade union.
• A UK-registered building society.
• A UK-registered limited liability partnership (LLP) that carries on business in the UK.
• A UK-registered friendly society.
• A UK-based unincorporated association that carries on business or other activities in the UK.
You can also accept donations from some types of trust, and from certain public funds.
The Russian and East European 'oligarchs' were only present at the charity dinners for the good conversation and convivial atmosphere.
The Conservatives really don't need any dodgy money. They are raking in entirely legit. donations - all of course fully declared and disclosed to the public - from lots of people very worried about the risk of the country taking a turn for the worse in 2015. It's fortunate that amongst these public-spirited people, there are some who make substantial donations, which helps to reduce the systematic pro-Labour bias a little bit.
"The Russian and East European 'oligarchs' were only present at the charity dinners for the good conversation and convivial atmosphere."
You become a parody of yourself sometimes.
It does, however, sound like a very interesting and varied guest list. I actually think Avery is not too far from the mark.
http://ow.ly/yQTSZ