And the Conservatives backing for FPTP is nothing to do with naked political considerations?
I am not a Tory and I voted for AV in the referendum.
Whatever the demerits of FPTP (& there are many), the UK government does get changed.
Whatever the failings of democracy in the US (& there are many), the US Presidency and the House and the Senate does get changed.
That doesn't happen in Wales.
(Also, it is not just the Conservatives who are enthusiastic about FPTP. Nick Palmer is a delightful exception, but most Labour MPs support FPTP as well. Come to South Wales and meet them.)
I think a big challenge is that in South Wales voting Labour is seen as a fundamental part of their Welsh identity.
One simple trick the GOP use is to minimise the number of polling stations in Democratic areas to the point where voting takes hours. In one place in Georgia there is one polling station serving a population of about 15000.
Needless to say, in GOP supporting areas polling stations are plentiful.
Well, it was only 13700 people. And they moved it 3 miles away from the regular location.
We once had a local election where the council moved the polling stations but decided to save money by not informing the voters where they'd gone. I spent polling day not so much trying to get Labour supporters to vote as explaining to people trying to vote where they ought to go.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. You have this Electoral College nonsense which makes the votes of some of the electorate is worth significantly more than others; a President who did not win the popular vote; the suppression of significant numbers of voters on the most spurious of grounds being sought by elected, partisan officials and obtained through the courts with elected, partisan judges; gerrymandering on an epic scale; mechanical counting machines which are known not to work but retained in use by partisan officials; utterly chaotic rules and procedures about postal votes which means it often takes weeks or even months before a close result can become official; at what point do we seriously question whether this is in fact a democracy at all?
But against that, consider the formidable strenghs of the American political system, compared to many others - brutal competition between the two parties, genuine separation of powers, independence of elected officials, a ferocious, scandal-hungry media and legal redress. Also far more posts are elected than virtually anywhere else, and many states and counties have more direct democracy than anywhere else save Switzerland.
An anecdote of my own - I was in Northern California last year, staying with a friend. She was lobbying to set up a Parks and Recreation department in the small town were she was. To do that, they had to spend months organising a citizens' group, then get an initiative on the ballot. I attended one of the town hall meetings out of curiosity. With the exception of Switzerland, I really can't think of anywhere else that comes close to that level of participation in the democratic process.
It's not a simple picture.
21st is still good, on a world wide view. It sometimes feels it may be easier for outsiders to spot potential weak points though. This applies to us too, but if you might struggle to explain or justify aspects of your system when questioned by those outside it there may be issues. Sometimes there are good reasons.
I would agree it is not straightforward but I question the overall balance. For example to what extent is there "complete separation of powers" when Trump puts the likes of Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court using a majority in the Senate that only exists because of the 2 senators per state rule?
I should perhaps have said "genuine" rather than complete. But once Kavanagh is on the court, he can do what he likes, irrespective of Trump. Presidents have often been disappointed by their SCOTUS nominees - e.g. Eisenhower and Earl Warren.
Anyway, separation of powers is certainly far more genuine in America than here, where 100 MPs are on the government's payroll and the whips are a constant terror.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. You have this Electoral College nonsense which makes the votes of some of the electorate is worth significantly more than others; a President who did not win the popular vote; the suppression of significant numbers of voters on the most spurious of grounds being sought by elected, partisan officials and obtained through the courts with elected, partisan judges; gerrymandering on an epic scale; mechanical counting machines which are known not to work but retained in use by partisan officials; utterly chaotic rules and procedures about postal votes which means it often takes weeks or even months before a close result can become official; at what point do we seriously question whether this is in fact a democracy at all?
But against that, consider the formidable strenghs of the American political system, compared to many others - brutal competition between the two parties, genuine separation of powers, independence of elected officials, a ferocious, scandal-hungry media and legal redress. Also far more posts are elected than virtually anywhere else, and many states and counties have more direct democracy than anywhere else save Switzerland.
An anecdote of my own - I was in Northern California last year, staying with a friend. She was lobbying to set up a Parks and Recreation department in the small town were she was. To do that, they had to spend months organising a citizens' group, then get an initiative on the ballot. I attended one of the town hall meetings out of curiosity. With the exception of Switzerland, I really can't think of anywhere else that comes close to that level of participation in the democratic process.
It's not a simple picture.
I would agree it is not straightforward but I question the overall balance. For example to what extent is there "complete separation of powers" when Trump puts the likes of Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court using a majority in the Senate that only exists because of the 2 senators per state rule?
Well that last one is fundamental to the system of course.
It's the partisan nature of officials, even legal officials, that strikes me the most. I know people will be affected by their personal politics, but openly appointing some roles based on that just doesn't sit well with me. Perhaps it works better in practice than it appears.
It was fun to learn that Nebraska I think it was has, legally, an officially non partisan state system, but in practice it's still run along partisan lines.
One simple trick the GOP use is to minimise the number of polling stations in Democratic areas to the point where voting takes hours. In one place in Georgia there is one polling station serving a population of about 15000.
Needless to say, in GOP supporting areas polling stations are plentiful.
Well, it was only 13700 people. And they moved it 3 miles away from the regular location.
We once had a local election where the council moved the polling stations but decided to save money by not informing the voters where they'd gone. I spent polling day not so much trying to get Labour supporters to vote as explaining to people trying to vote where they ought to go.
As a real oddity my local polling place used to be in a different constituency (the dividing line ran down the middle of the road and the church was on the 'wrong' side) . Sadly due to the church closing down my polling place has moved and much more mundanely it is now within the constituency boundaries.
I would agree it is not straightforward but I question the overall balance. For example to what extent is there "complete separation of powers" when Trump puts the likes of Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court using a majority in the Senate that only exists because of the 2 senators per state rule?
I should perhaps have said "genuine" rather than complete. But once Kavanagh is on the court, he can do what he likes, irrespective of Trump. Presidents have often been disappointed by their SCOTUS nominees - e.g. Eisenhower and Earl Warren.
Anyway, separation of powers is certainly far more genuine in America than here, where 100 MPs are on the government's payroll and the whips are a constant terror.
Well of course it's more genuine, the UK is not even attempting a separation of powers, it's not claiming to entirely separate them is it? Ours is intentionally merged even if not as much as it used to be.
One simple trick the GOP use is to minimise the number of polling stations in Democratic areas to the point where voting takes hours. In one place in Georgia there is one polling station serving a population of about 15000.
Needless to say, in GOP supporting areas polling stations are plentiful.
Well, it was only 13700 people. And they moved it 3 miles away from the regular location.
We once had a local election where the council moved the polling stations but decided to save money by not informing the voters where they'd gone. I spent polling day not so much trying to get Labour supporters to vote as explaining to people trying to vote where they ought to go.
At least in this country you can be confident that that was good old-fashioned British incompetence, not an attempt to suppress the vote!
To summarise: for a so-called “People’s Vote,”or rather a “second people’s vote” to succeed in its aims, it needs: a majority in the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, under Art 50(3) of the TEU, or else the UK would be out of the EU before the result of the vote were known and was acted upon; thirdly, a sufficient majority of the electorate giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; fourthly, a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; fifthly, a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament—the Miller case in reverse; and lastly, the continued political will to carry all this out—no comment. The chances of any “People’s Vote”resulting in the UK remaining seem slim indeed. The UK is sloping towards an EU exit, whether we like it or not.
Much of that is probably untrue. It is probably possible to hold a referendum without an Act of Parliament. Whether it would be desirable to do so is another matter, of course.
Fifthly also seems incorrect. If a People's Vote is held and won, the Act of Parliament would be forthcoming.
I would agree it is not straightforward but I question the overall balance. For example to what extent is there "complete separation of powers" when Trump puts the likes of Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court using a majority in the Senate that only exists because of the 2 senators per state rule?
I should perhaps have said "genuine" rather than complete. But once Kavanagh is on the court, he can do what he likes, irrespective of Trump. Presidents have often been disappointed by their SCOTUS nominees - e.g. Eisenhower and Earl Warren.
Anyway, separation of powers is certainly far more genuine in America than here, where 100 MPs are on the government's payroll and the whips are a constant terror.
Don't recognise your description of our system. Ms Crouch is a good recent example. Not sure whether it has been the whips who have terrorised the ERG or the other way around!
Thanks for sharing. Nowhere is that more true than in the Labour Party. A party membership more and more made up of latte-sipping Guardianistas who are completely detached from traditionally working class Labour voters. Whether the party stays left or moves back rightwards, this issue will remain.
Britain as a whole has moved away from half the population being traditional working class - depending on how you define it, the traditional working class is now perhaps 20% of the population. I agree that it's important to represent them, but any party does need to appeal to a much wider coalition.
The latte-sipping Guardianista is anyway a bit of a myth outside university areas. In deepest Surrey where I now live, I wouldn't describe a single one of the local Labour people (about 600 in my CLP) in those terms, except maybe me. Most are neither intellectual nor traditional working class - they're people who are getting by as best they can who feel society ought to be more equal.
I would agree.
I am not a Labour Party member but some of my friends are. My daughter and her partner joined when Corbyn became leader.
As for the Guardian , I read it a lot due to the fact it is not behind a paywall.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. You have this Electoral College nonsense which makes the votes of some of the electorate is worth significantly more than others; a President who did not win the popular vote; the suppression of significant numbers of voters on the most spurious of grounds being sought by elected, partisan officials and obtained through the courts with elected, partisan judges; gerrymandering on an epic scale; mechanical counting machines which are known not to work but retained in use by partisan officials; utterly chaotic rules and procedures about postal votes which means it often takes weeks or even months before a close result can become official; at what point do we seriously question whether this is in fact a democracy at all?
But against that, consider the formidable strenghs of the American political system, compared to many others - brutal competition between the two parties, genuine separation of powers, independence of elected officials, a ferocious, scandal-hungry media and legal redress. Also far more posts are elected than virtually anywhere else, and many states and counties have more direct democracy than anywhere else save Switzerland.
An anecdote of my own - I was in Northern California last year, staying with a friend. She was lobbying to set up a Parks and Recreation department in the small town were she was. To do that, they had to spend months organising a citizens' group, then get an initiative on the ballot. I attended one of the town hall meetings out of curiosity. With the exception of Switzerland, I really can't think of anywhere else that comes close to that level of participation in the democratic process.
It's not a simple picture.
I would agree it is not straightforward but I question the overall balance. For example to what extent is there "complete separation of powers" when Trump puts the likes of Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court using a majority in the Senate that only exists because of the 2 senators per state rule?
Well that last one is fundamental to the system of course.
It's the partisan nature of officials, even legal officials, that strikes me the most. I know people will be affected by their personal politics, but openly appointing some roles based on that just doesn't sit well with me. Perhaps it works better in practice than it appears.
It was fun to learn that Nebraska I think it was has, legally, an officially non partisan state system, but in practice it's still run along partisan lines.
Well yes, and the reality is that many of our "impartial" officials are also very aware of who is running their local council and will be deciding on the next round of promotions too.
Thanks for sharing. Nowhere is that more true than in the Labour Party. A party membership more and more made up of latte-sipping Guardianistas who are completely detached from traditionally working class Labour voters. Whether the party stays left or moves back rightwards, this issue will remain.
Britain as a whole has moved away from half the population being traditional working class - depending on how you define it, the traditional working class is now perhaps 20% of the population. I agree that it's important to represent them, but any party does need to appeal to a much wider coalition.
The latte-sipping Guardianista is anyway a bit of a myth outside university areas. In deepest Surrey where I now live, I wouldn't describe a single one of the local Labour people (about 600 in my CLP) in those terms, except maybe me. Most are neither intellectual nor traditional working class - they're people who are getting by as best they can who feel society ought to be more equal.
I would agree.
I am not a Labour Party member but some of my friends are. My daughter and her partner joined when Corbyn became leader.
As for the Guardian , I read it a lot due to the fact it is not behind a paywall.
I'm just calling it as I see it. Take my former branch in Leeds - an active membership dominated by those living in the nice riverside flats, voters living in the estates of south Leeds.
Don't recognise your description of our system. Ms Crouch is a good recent example. Not sure whether it has been the whips who have terrorised the ERG or the other way around!
That is because tiny majorities or minority governments temporarily tilt the advantage to backbenchers. But with a government with any kind of decent majority, as for most of our history, whips are almost all-powerful and individual backbenchers virtually an irrelevance.
To summarise: for a so-called “People’s Vote,”or rather a “second people’s vote” to succeed in its aims, it needs: a majority in the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, under Art 50(3) of the TEU, or else the UK would be out of the EU before the result of the vote were known and was acted upon; thirdly, a sufficient majority of the electorate giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; fourthly, a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; fifthly, a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament—the Miller case in reverse; and lastly, the continued political will to carry all this out—no comment. The chances of any “People’s Vote”resulting in the UK remaining seem slim indeed. The UK is sloping towards an EU exit, whether we like it or not.
Well, what would a retired High Court Judge and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and King's College, London, know?
What, specifically, do you think he got wrong?
1) the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; 2) an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, 3) a sufficient majority giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; 4) a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; 5) a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament 6) the continued political will to carry all this out
The Times saying that student fees are set to go down to £6.5k from £9.25k. I think a better solution is to have a variable cap per course and uni. The government must now have enough data on which courses and universities perform well in terms of payback rates and which ones don't. Allow the former to charge the full. £9.25k and the latter should have their fees capped to the payback proportion.
How can that possibly be the case when the system has only been in place for 6 years, and the payback period is 30 years?
Re the 2020 Democratic nomination, watch Eric Holder. He's been constantly on the road stumping for Democratic candidates. He could score surprising highly in Iowa and New Hampshire
Interesting comment about Arizona. They appear to have a system which disqualifies votes when the voters names are similar, on the pretext of preventing double voting. Apparently the system is used to work against people with Hispanic names.
One does wonder sometimes whether the US can really be described as a democracy.
I think a democracy has every right to restrict the franchise however it wishes. The test of being a democracy is that people are free to debate and dissent to such restrictions. Normally this dissent and debate will lead to a wide franchise, but I think it's an important distinction to make in the light of the Russian experience where everyone has the vote, but no-one is free to debate and dissent to the status quo -making the ability to vote almost meaningless.
The US is clearly a democracy in a way that Russia is not. Democracy is about dissent, not voting.
Hogwash
Put delicately the ability to restrict 'however it wishes' surely has the potential to allow restriction which makes it meaningless for many people. 'However it wishes' suggests you should be able to restrict directly based on, for Instance, race.
exactly, if you can restrict it then you have a dictatorship.
Re the 2020 Democratic nomination, watch Eric Holder. He's been constantly on the road stumping for Democratic candidates. He could score surprising highly in Iowa and New Hampshire
Interesting comment about Arizona. They appear to have a system which disqualifies votes when the voters names are similar, on the pretext of preventing double voting. Apparently the system is used to work against people with Hispanic names.
One does wonder sometimes whether the US can really be described as a democracy.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. You have this Electoral College nonsense which makes the votes of some of the electorate is worth significantly more than others; a President who did not win the popular vote; the suppression of significant numbers of voters on the most spurious of grounds being sought by elected, partisan officials and obtained through the courts with elected, partisan judges; gerrymandering on an epic scale; mechanical counting machines which are known not to work but retained in use by partisan officials; utterly chaotic rules and procedures about postal votes which means it often takes weeks or even months before a close result can become official; at what point do we seriously question whether this is in fact a democracy at all?
The electoral college is utterly ridiculous. The smaller states are already represented by virtue of having two senators regardless of size. The president should be the winner of the popular vote. It’s easily fixed. State electors could just agree to give their EC votes to the winner of the PV, thus the winner of the PV is also the winner of the EC.
To summarise: for a so-called “People’s Vote,”or rather a “second people’s vote” to succeed in its aims, it needs: a majority in the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, under Art 50(3) of the TEU, or else the UK would be out of the EU before the result of the vote were known and was acted upon; thirdly, a sufficient majority of the electorate giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; fourthly, a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; fifthly, a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament—the Miller case in reverse; and lastly, the continued political will to carry all this out—no comment. The chances of any “People’s Vote”resulting in the UK remaining seem slim indeed. The UK is sloping towards an EU exit, whether we like it or not.
Well, what would a retired High Court Judge and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and King's College, London, know?
What, specifically, do you think he got wrong?
1) the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; 2) an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, 3) a sufficient majority giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; 4) a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; 5) a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament 6) the continued political will to carry all this out
Don't all six need to happen?
Good morning all. The domestic elements can be addressed quickly - just because something is unprecedented doesn't rule out alacrity. The problematic issues are around our counterparties, and there the politics are quite hard to read. Because the EU doesn't speak with a single voice, there's just a cacophony of opinion from the great & good.
Until recently my view was that Macron ( in particular) was glad to see the back of the UK. Ironically, some of the elements of 'The Deal' that Remainers value (the rebate, the opt-outs) make us poor Europeans from 'The Project' perspective. Now that Merkel is a busted flush, I'm not so sure.
Re the 2020 Democratic nomination, watch Eric Holder. He's been constantly on the road stumping for Democratic candidates. He could score surprising highly in Iowa and New Hampshire
Interesting comment about Arizona. They appear to have a system which disqualifies votes when the voters names are similar, on the pretext of preventing double voting. Apparently the system is used to work against people with Hispanic names.
One does wonder sometimes whether the US can really be described as a democracy.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. You have this Electoral College nonsense which makes the votes of some of the electorate is worth significantly more than others; a President who did not win the popular vote; the suppression of significant numbers of voters on the most spurious of grounds being sought by elected, partisan officials and obtained through the courts with elected, partisan judges; gerrymandering on an epic scale; mechanical counting machines which are known not to work but retained in use by partisan officials; utterly chaotic rules and procedures about postal votes which means it often takes weeks or even months before a close result can become official; at what point do we seriously question whether this is in fact a democracy at all?
The electoral college is utterly ridiculous. The smaller states are already represented by virtue of having two senators regardless of size. The president should be the winner of the popular vote. It’s easily fixed. State electors could just agree to give their EC votes to the winner of the PV, thus the winner of the PV is also the winner of the EC.
There is nothing wrong with the electoral college in principle, but are the number of electoral college votes updated regularly to reflect current populations? If not, depopulation of rural areas and declining industrial towns, with a drift to major cities, which is a worldwide phenomenon, will give an electoral bias to some of the smaller states. The same applies in the UK, except that certain semi-rural areas close to and within commuting distance of major conurbations do tend to have increasing populations.
The Times saying that student fees are set to go down to £6.5k from £9.25k. I think a better solution is to have a variable cap per course and uni. The government must now have enough data on which courses and universities perform well in terms of payback rates and which ones don't. Allow the former to charge the full. £9.25k and the latter should have their fees capped to the payback proportion.
How can that possibly be the case when the system has only been in place for 6 years, and the payback period is 30 years?
I can foresee just a tiny problem. Student A went to Uni, paid £9k pa and now has a job whereby he (I know) pays back the fees. His cousin, Student B attends the same Uni a few years later and pays £6.5k pa and ends up working for roughly the same salary. I suspect A is going to be just slightly annoyed.
One simple trick the GOP use is to minimise the number of polling stations in Democratic areas to the point where voting takes hours. In one place in Georgia there is one polling station serving a population of about 15000.
Needless to say, in GOP supporting areas polling stations are plentiful.
Well, it was only 13700 people. And they moved it 3 miles away from the regular location.
We once had a local election where the council moved the polling stations but decided to save money by not informing the voters where they'd gone. I spent polling day not so much trying to get Labour supporters to vote as explaining to people trying to vote where they ought to go.
At least in this country you can be confident that that was good old-fashioned British incompetence, not an attempt to suppress the vote!
Thanks for sharing. Nowhere is that more true than in the Labour Party. A party membership more and more made up of latte-sipping Guardianistas who are completely detached from traditionally working class Labour voters. Whether the party stays left or moves back rightwards, this issue will remain.
Britain as a whole has moved away from half the population being traditional working class - depending on how you define it, the traditional working class is now perhaps 20% of the population. I agree that it's important to represent them, but any party does need to appeal to a much wider coalition.
The latte-sipping Guardianista is anyway a bit of a myth outside university areas. In deepest Surrey where I now live, I wouldn't describe a single one of the local Labour people (about 600 in my CLP) in those terms, except maybe me. Most are neither intellectual nor traditional working class - they're people who are getting by as best they can who feel society ought to be more equal.
I would agree.
I am not a Labour Party member but some of my friends are. My daughter and her partner joined when Corbyn became leader.
As for the Guardian , I read it a lot due to the fact it is not behind a paywall.
I'm just calling it as I see it. Take my former branch in Leeds - an active membership dominated by those living in the nice riverside flats, voters living in the estates of south Leeds.
True , my daughter lives in Horsforth Leeds.I Believe it used to be a Lib Dem seat. So she was chuffed it went Labour.
I live in York Outer formerly Rydale always been Conservative. Must be nice to live in a seat where it can change , and your vote counts.
Re the 2020 Democratic nomination, watch Eric Holder. He's been constantly on the road stumping for Democratic candidates. He could score surprising highly in Iowa and New Hampshire
Interesting comment about Arizona. They appear to have a system which disqualifies votes when the voters names are similar, on the pretext of preventing double voting. Apparently the system is used to work against people with Hispanic names.
One does wonder sometimes whether the US can really be described as a democracy.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. You have this Electoral College nonsense which makes the votes of some of the electorate is worth significantly more than others; a President who did not win the popular vote; the suppression of significant numbers of voters on the most spurious of grounds being sought by elected, partisan officials and obtained through the courts with elected, partisan judges; gerrymandering on an epic scale; mechanical counting machines which are known not to work but retained in use by partisan officials; utterly chaotic rules and procedures about postal votes which means it often takes weeks or even months before a close result can become official; at what point do we seriously question whether this is in fact a democracy at all?
The electoral college is utterly ridiculous. The smaller states are already represented by virtue of having two senators regardless of size. The president should be the winner of the popular vote. It’s easily fixed. State electors could just agree to give their EC votes to the winner of the PV, thus the winner of the PV is also the winner of the EC.
There is nothing wrong with the electoral college in principle, but are the number of electoral college votes updated regularly to reflect current populations? If not, depopulation of rural areas and declining industrial towns, with a drift to major cities, which is a worldwide phenomenon, will give an electoral bias to some of the smaller states. The same applies in the UK, except that certain semi-rural areas close to and within commuting distance of major conurbations do tend to have increasing populations.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
"Our economic GDP may be booming, but our moral GDP is in recession. The tragedy of Pittsburgh illustrates, among other things, that the president cannot unite us, even in our grief. Whatever happens on Tuesday, Democrats will only win in 2020 if they find a candidate who can."
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
Thanks for sharing. Nowhere is that more true than in the Labour Party. A party membership more and more made up of latte-sipping Guardianistas who are completely detached from traditionally working class Labour voters. Whether the party stays left or moves back rightwards, this issue will remain.
Britain as a whole has moved away from half the population being traditional working class - depending on how you define it, the traditional working class is now perhaps 20% of the population. I agree that it's important to represent them, but any party does need to appeal to a much wider coalition.
The latte-sipping Guardianista is anyway a bit of a myth outside university areas. In deepest Surrey where I now live, I wouldn't describe a single one of the local Labour people (about 600 in my CLP) in those terms, except maybe me. Most are neither intellectual nor traditional working class - they're people who are getting by as best they can who feel society ought to be more equal.
I would agree.
I am not a Labour Party member but some of my friends are. My daughter and her partner joined when Corbyn became leader.
As for the Guardian , I read it a lot due to the fact it is not behind a paywall.
I'm just calling it as I see it. Take my former branch in Leeds - an active membership dominated by those living in the nice riverside flats, voters living in the estates of south Leeds.
True , my daughter lives in Horsforth Leeds.I Believe it used to be a Lib Dem seat. So she was chuffed it went Labour.
I live in York Outer formerly Rydale always been Conservative. Must be nice to live in a seat where it can change , and your vote counts.
Re the 2020 Democratic nomination, watch Eric Holder. He's been constantly on the road stumping for Democratic candidates. He could score surprising highly in Iowa and New Hampshire
Interesting comment about Arizona. They appear to have a system which disqualifies votes when the voters names are similar, on the pretext of preventing double voting. Apparently the system is used to work against people with Hispanic names.
One does wonder sometimes whether the US can really be described as a democracy.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. You have this Electoral College nonsense which makes the votes of some of the electorate is worth significantly more than others; a President who did not win the popular vote; the suppression of significant numbers of voters on the most spurious of grounds being sought by elected, partisan officials and obtained through the courts with elected, partisan judges; gerrymandering on an epic scale; mechanical counting machines which are known not to work but retained in use by partisan officials; utterly chaotic rules and procedures about postal votes which means it often takes weeks or even months before a close result can become official; at what point do we seriously question whether this is in fact a democracy at all?
The electoral college is utterly ridiculous. The smaller states are already represented by virtue of having two senators regardless of size. The president should be the winner of the popular vote. It’s easily fixed. State electors could just agree to give their EC votes to the winner of the PV, thus the winner of the PV is also the winner of the EC.
There is nothing wrong with the electoral college in principle, but are the number of electoral college votes updated regularly to reflect current populations? If not, depopulation of rural areas and declining industrial towns, with a drift to major cities, which is a worldwide phenomenon, will give an electoral bias to some of the smaller states. The same applies in the UK, except that certain semi-rural areas close to and within commuting distance of major conurbations do tend to have increasing populations.
Yes they are regularly updated but the issue is that every state gets a base of 3 EVs before the populations distribution of EVs.
To summarise: for a so-called “People’s Vote,”or rather a “second people’s vote” to succeed in its aims, it needs: a majority in the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, under Art 50(3) of the TEU, or else the UK would be out of the EU before the result of the vote were known and was acted upon; thirdly, a sufficient majority of the electorate giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; fourthly, a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; fifthly, a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament—the Miller case in reverse; and lastly, the continued political will to carry all this out—no comment. The chances of any “People’s Vote”resulting in the UK remaining seem slim indeed. The UK is sloping towards an EU exit, whether we like it or not.
Well, what would a retired High Court Judge and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and King's College, London, know?
What, specifically, do you think he got wrong?
1) the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; 2) an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, 3) a sufficient majority giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; 4) a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; 5) a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament 6) the continued political will to carry all this out
Don't all six need to happen?
I expect Richard Aiken's knows a lot, but as a declared partisan of Brexit and a board member of the Briefings for Brexit forum, he won't be promoting an objective judgement.
Thanks for sharing. Nowhere is that more true than in the Labour Party. A party membership more and more made up of latte-sipping Guardianistas who are completely detached from traditionally working class Labour voters. Whether the party stays left or moves back rightwards, this issue will remain.
Britain as a whole has moved away from half the population being traditional working class - depending on how you define it, the traditional working class is now perhaps 20% of the population. I agree that it's important to represent them, but any party does need to appeal to a much wider coalition.
The latte-sipping Guardianista is anyway a bit of a myth outside university areas. In deepest Surrey where I now live, I wouldn't describe a single one of the local Labour people (about 600 in my CLP) in those terms, except maybe me. Most are neither intellectual nor traditional working class - they're people who are getting by as best they can who feel society ought to be more equal.
I would agree.
I am not a Labour Party member but some of my friends are. My daughter and her partner joined when Corbyn became leader.
As for the Guardian , I read it a lot due to the fact it is not behind a paywall.
I'm just calling it as I see it. Take my former branch in Leeds - an active membership dominated by those living in the nice riverside flats, voters living in the estates of south Leeds.
True , my daughter lives in Horsforth Leeds.I Believe it used to be a Lib Dem seat. So she was chuffed it went Labour.
I live in York Outer formerly Rydale always been Conservative. Must be nice to live in a seat where it can change , and your vote counts.
These things can change very fast. Ten years ago Cannock was considered a fairly safe Labour seat. Now it's a very safe Tory one. Canterbury, Mansfield, Stoke South, Kensington, all the Glasgow seats also say hello.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
But Maine and Vermont were Republican in the sense that Lincoln was. I don’t think that one can describe the modern GOP as ‘Lincolnian’ can one?
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
But Maine and Vermont were Republican in the sense that Lincoln was. I don’t think that one can describe the modern GOP as ‘Lincolnian’ can one?
On that basis, we could point out that between 1868 and 1948 pretty much state in the former Confedaracy voted for the Democrats in pretty much every election. Since 1968 it has consistently been the other way around.
Edit - you could make some parallels between Trump and Lincoln. Both demagogues with limited political experience, both racist, both trampled ruthlessly on the law and the constitution whenever it suited them, both idolised past reason by their admirers and hated beyond measure by their opponents, both had rather dodgy Vice Presidents. Indeed, in political terms arguably the difference with Trump is that unlike Lincoln (who only campaigned in free states) he reached out beyond his core vote.
For all his many unpleasant faults, I hope Trump doesn't emulate Lincoln's final key fact...what happened to Jackson would do nicely.
To summarise: for a so-called “People’s Vote,”or rather a “second people’s vote” to succeed in its aims, it needs: a [...] fourthly, a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; fifthly, a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament—the Miller case in reverse; and lastly, the continued political will to carry all this out—no comment. The chances of any “People’s Vote”resulting in the UK remaining seem slim indeed. The UK is sloping towards an EU exit, whether we like it or not.
Well, what would a retired High Court Judge and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and King's College, London, know?
What, specifically, do you think he got wrong?
1) the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; 2) an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, 3) a sufficient majority giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; 4) a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; 5) a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament 6) the continued political will to carry all this out
Don't all six need to happen?
Good morning all. The domestic elements can be addressed quickly - just because something is unprecedented doesn't rule out alacrity. The problematic issues are around our counterparties, and there the politics are quite hard to read. Because the EU doesn't speak with a single voice, there's just a cacophony of opinion from the great & good.
Until recently my view was that Macron ( in particular) was glad to see the back of the UK. Ironically, some of the elements of 'The Deal' that Remainers value (the rebate, the opt-outs) make us poor Europeans from 'The Project' perspective. Now that Merkel is a busted flush, I'm not so sure.
The EU and member states objective is to get us out with the least additional damage to them. What's changed somewhat is that they are now less worried about our ability to cause them damage. They think we're doing a good job of damaging ourselves. Whether that reduced EU worry is good news for us ...
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
But Maine and Vermont were Republican in the sense that Lincoln was. I don’t think that one can describe the modern GOP as ‘Lincolnian’ can one?
You can try.
'Dinesh D'Souza, who Trump pardoned, has a new documentary that compares the president to Lincoln, and it has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes'
Thanks for sharing. Nowhere is that more true than in the Labour Party. A party membership more and more made up of latte-sipping Guardianistas who are completely detached from traditionally working class Labour voters. Whether the party stays left or moves back rightwards, this issue will remain.
Britain as a whole has moved away from half the population being traditional working class - depending on how you define it, the traditional working class is now perhaps 20% of the population. I agree that it's important to represent them, but any party does need to appeal to a much wider coalition.
The latte-sipping Guardianista is anyway a bit of a myth outside university areas. In deepest Surrey where I now live, I wouldn't describe a single one of the local Labour people (about 600 in my CLP) in those terms, except maybe me. Most are neither intellectual nor traditional working class - they're people who are getting by as best they can who feel society ought to be more equal.
I would agree.
I am not a Labour Party member but some of my friends are. My daughter and her partner joined when Corbyn became leader.
As for the Guardian , I read it a lot due to the fact it is not behind a paywall.
I'm just calling it as I see it. Take my former branch in Leeds - an active membership dominated by those living in the nice riverside flats, voters living in the estates of south Leeds.
True , my daughter lives in Horsforth Leeds.I Believe it used to be a Lib Dem seat. So she was chuffed it went Labour.
I live in York Outer formerly Rydale always been Conservative. Must be nice to live in a seat where it can change , and your vote counts.
These things can change very fast. Ten years ago Cannock was considered a fairly safe Labour seat. Now it's a very safe Tory one. Canterbury, Mansfield, Stoke South, Kensington, all the Glasgow seats also say hello.
When I moved here almost 20 years ago the seat had been won by Labour in one of the sensational upsets of 1997. There have since been significant boundary changes and both the successor seats are solidly Tory. Ryedale was briefly (1986-7) a Liberal seat.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
They’re states with liberal populations. They do vote in Republicans though. I’d be delighted if told I had to live in Rutland VT or Portland ME. They’re both fantastic places.
Edit - memory is correct, Maibe’s Senators are R and Ind. people split their votes. The underlying point had weakness.
One quetion (apologies if it's already been asked): how much influence does the governor, as opposed to the state legislature, have over the state apparatus?
Thanks for sharing. Nowhere is that more true than in the Labour Party. A party membership more and more made up of latte-sipping Guardianistas who are completely detached from traditionally working class Labour voters. Whether the party stays left or moves back rightwards, this issue will remain.
Britain as a whole has moved away from half the population being traditional working class - depending on how you define it, the traditional working class is now perhaps 20% of the population. I agree that it's important to represent them, but any party does need to appeal to a much wider coalition.
The latte-sipping Guardianista is anyway a bit of a myth outside university areas. In deepest Surrey where I now live, I wouldn't describe a single one of the local Labour people (about 600 in my CLP) in those terms, except maybe me. Most are neither intellectual nor traditional working class - they're people who are getting by as best they can who feel society ought to be more equal.
I would agree.
I am not a Labour Party member but some of my friends are. My daughter and her partner joined when Corbyn became leader.
As for the Guardian , I read it a lot due to the fact it is not behind a paywall.
I'm just calling it as I see it. Take my former branch in Leeds - an active membership dominated by those living in the nice riverside flats, voters living in the estates of south Leeds.
True , my daughter lives in Horsforth Leeds.I Believe it used to be a Lib Dem seat. So she was chuffed it went Labour.
I live in York Outer formerly Rydale always been Conservative. Must be nice to live in a seat where it can change , and your vote counts.
These things can change very fast. Ten years ago Cannock was considered a fairly safe Labour seat. Now it's a very safe Tory one. Canterbury, Mansfield, Stoke South, Kensington, all the Glasgow seats also say hello.
When I moved here almost 20 years ago the seat had been won by Labour in one of the sensational upsets of 1997. There have since been significant boundary changes and both the successor seats are solidly Tory. Ryedale was briefly (1986-7) a Liberal seat.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
But Maine and Vermont were Republican in the sense that Lincoln was. I don’t think that one can describe the modern GOP as ‘Lincolnian’ can one?
You can try.
'Dinesh D'Souza, who Trump pardoned, has a new documentary that compares the president to Lincoln, and it has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes'
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
But Maine and Vermont were Republican in the sense that Lincoln was. I don’t think that one can describe the modern GOP as ‘Lincolnian’ can one?
On that basis, we could point out that between 1868 and 1948 pretty much state in the former Confedaracy voted for the Democrats in pretty much every election. Since 1968 it has consistently been the other way around.
Edit - you could make some parallels between Trump and Lincoln. Both demagogues with limited political experience, both racist, both trampled ruthlessly on the law and the constitution whenever it suited them, both idolised past reason by their admirers and hated beyond measure by their opponents, both had rather dodgy Vice Presidents. Indeed, in political terms arguably the difference with Trump is that unlike Lincoln (who only campaigned in free states) he reached out beyond his core vote.
For all his many unpleasant faults, I hope Trump doesn't emulate Lincoln's final key fact...what happened to Jackson would do nicely.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
GOPers doing whole "party of Lincoln" shtick keep missing out the massive public works and unrestricted immigration parts of the Lincoln platform and seem keen to forget the fullsome and effusive endorsement by Karl Marx.
To summarise: for a so-called “People’s Vote,”or rather a “second people’s vote” to succeed in its aims, it needs: a [...] fourthly, a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; fifthly, a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament—the Miller case in reverse; and lastly, the continued political will to carry all this out—no comment. The chances of any “People’s Vote”resulting in the UK remaining seem slim indeed. The UK is sloping towards an EU exit, whether we like it or not.
Well, what would a retired High Court Judge and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and King's College, London, know?
What, specifically, do you think he got wrong?
1) the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; 2) an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, 3) a sufficient majority giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; 4) a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; 5) a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament 6) the continued political will to carry all this out
Don't all six need to happen?
Good morning all. The domestic elements can be addressed quickly - just because something is unprecedented doesn't rule out alacrity. The problematic issues are around our counterparties, and there the politics are quite hard to read. Because the EU doesn't speak with a single voice, there's just a cacophony of opinion from the great & good.
Until recently my view was that Macron ( in particular) was glad to see the back of the UK. Ironically, some of the elements of 'The Deal' that Remainers value (the rebate, the opt-outs) make us poor Europeans from 'The Project' perspective. Now that Merkel is a busted flush, I'm not so sure.
The EU and member states objective is to get us out with the least additional damage to them. What's changed somewhat is that they are now less worried about our ability to cause them damage. They think we're doing a good job of damaging ourselves. Whether that reduced EU worry is good news for us ...
I was speaking to a Swiss diplomat last weekend. His view was that the British don't know what they want and the EU wasn't going to invest anything in helping them make up their minds.
One quetion (apologies if it's already been asked): how much influence does the governor, as opposed to the state legislature, have over the state apparatus?
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948.
Put it this way, I prefer my explanation because it sounds a hell of a lot less patronising to African Americans, many of whom were actually well-educated and intelligent. That made the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 at once the most pointless presidential decree of them all (as it didn't free a single slave) and one of the greatest strokes of politics of all time.
To summarise: for a so-called “People’s Vote,”or rather a “second people’s vote” to succeed in its aims, it needs: a majority in the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, under Art 50(3) of the TEU, or else the UK would be out of the EU before the result of the vote were known and was acted upon; thirdly, a sufficient majority of the electorate giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; fourthly, a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; fifthly, a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament—the Miller case in reverse; and lastly, the continued political will to carry all this out—no comment. The chances of any “People’s Vote”resulting in the UK remaining seem slim indeed. The UK is sloping towards an EU exit, whether we like it or not.
Well, what would a retired High Court Judge and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and King's College, London, know?
What, specifically, do you think he got wrong?
1) the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; 2) an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, 3) a sufficient majority giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; 4) a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; 5) a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament 6) the continued political will to carry all this out
Don't all six need to happen?
You edited out the answer to your question.
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
Oh lor, back to bloody Brexit.
One comment on this only. I think you're wrong Alistair. I believe following the precedents of recent years it would require Acts of Parliament at both ends.
OK, you're the very distinguished lawyer, and I am neither a lawyer nor especially distinguished. But I cannot see how a referendum would be organised without the help of local councils, and I can foresee a very large number of them refusing to take part without that vote - not least, because of the financial implications of it.
And if even one boycotts it, that opens up a whole nasty can of worms about its legitimacy especially if it is again a narrow result.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
But Maine and Vermont were Republican in the sense that Lincoln was. I don’t think that one can describe the modern GOP as ‘Lincolnian’ can one?
On that basis, we could point out that between 1868 and 1948 pretty much state in the former Confedaracy voted for the Democrats in pretty much every election. Since 1968 it has consistently been the other way around.
Edit - you could make some parallels between Trump and Lincoln. Both demagogues with limited political experience, both racist, both trampled ruthlessly on the law and the constitution whenever it suited them, both idolised past reason by their admirers and hated beyond measure by their opponents, both had rather dodgy Vice Presidents. Indeed, in political terms arguably the difference with Trump is that unlike Lincoln (who only campaigned in free states) he reached out beyond his core vote.
For all his many unpleasant faults, I hope Trump doesn't emulate Lincoln's final key fact...what happened to Jackson would do nicely.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
Oh lor, back to bloody Brexit.
One comment on this only. I think you're wrong Alistair. I believe following the precedents of recent years it would require Acts of Parliament at both ends.
OK, you're the very distinguished lawyer, and I am neither a lawyer nor especially distinguished. But I cannot see how a referendum would be organised without the help of local councils, and I can foresee a very large number of them refusing to take part without that vote - not least, because of the financial implications of it.
And if even one boycotts it, that opens up a whole nasty can of worms about its legitimacy especially if it is again a narrow result.
Australia has very recent precedent on this. A non-statutory referendum on gay marriage was organised by postal vote. It was challenged in the courts and upheld as lawful.
To summarise: for a so-called “People’s Vote,”or rather a “second people’s vote” to succeed in its aims, it needs: a majority in the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, under Art 50(3) of the TEU, or else the UK would be out of the EU before the result of the vote were known and was acted upon; thirdly, a sufficient majority of the electorate giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; fourthly, a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; fifthly, a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament—the Miller case in reverse; and lastly, the continued political will to carry all this out—no comment. The chances of any “People’s Vote”resulting in the UK remaining seem slim indeed. The UK is sloping towards an EU exit, whether we like it or not.
Well, what would a retired High Court Judge and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and King's College, London, know?
What, specifically, do you think he got wrong?
1) the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; 2) an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, 3) a sufficient majority giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; 4) a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; 5) a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament 6) the continued political will to carry all this out
Don't all six need to happen?
You edited out the answer to your question.
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
That looks broadly correct. There’s a legitimacy argument around 5. if the executive takes the decision without reference to parliament but given that, broadly, in the British system parliament is subservient to the executive, it’s hardly a constitutional departure.
Leavers assume that the “will of the people” is a fixed compass. I doubt that.
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
I don't think that 1 is wrong. The legislative framework for holding a referendum is well-established and is subject to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. I don't think the government could simply ignore that.
As the font of all human knowledge puts it:
Separate legislation (i.e. an Act of Parliament) by the Parliament of the United Kingdom is required for the holding of each UK-wide referendum which is held to set out the referendum question, its format, the franchise for each plebiscite, and how each count is to be conducted. In the following is a list of legislation which has been passed by the UK Parliament to enable the holding of the following UK-wide referendums.
- Referendum Act 1975 (United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975) - Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 (United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011) - European Union Referendum Act 2015 (United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016)
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
But Maine and Vermont were Republican in the sense that Lincoln was. I don’t think that one can describe the modern GOP as ‘Lincolnian’ can one?
On that basis, we could point out that between 1868 and 1948 pretty much state in the former Confedaracy voted for the Democrats in pretty much every election. Since 1968 it has consistently been the other way around.
Edit - you could make some parallels between Trump and Lincoln. Both demagogues with limited political experience, both racist, both trampled ruthlessly on the law and the constitution whenever it suited them, both idolised past reason by their admirers and hated beyond measure by their opponents, both had rather dodgy Vice Presidents. Indeed, in political terms arguably the difference with Trump is that unlike Lincoln (who only campaigned in free states) he reached out beyond his core vote.
For all his many unpleasant faults, I hope Trump doesn't emulate Lincoln's final key fact...what happened to Jackson would do nicely.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
Gone With the Wind is, of course literature.
You say that...
(I too read it a very long time ago so perhaps I was a harsher critic then)
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948.
Put it this way, I prefer my explanation because it sounds a hell of a lot less patronising to African Americans, many of whom were actually well-educated and intelligent. That made the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 at once the most pointless presidential decree of them all (as it didn't free a single slave) and one of the greatest strokes of politics of all time.
Gosh, I sound really cynical.
Yes, but you also sound right. Agree about the patronising; the phrase used was a ‘sort of’ remembered quote. GWTW can’t be described as other than supportive of the ante-bellum South. It was very difficult, AIUI for an African American in Georgia, the Carolinas or Alabama to get much of an education, although easier in Louisiana and IIRC Texas.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
LBJ is very underrated at present. Hoodwinked into, initially anyway, thinking that the Vietnam War was a) in the US interest, b) winnable by his advisors with a very imperfect grasp of SE Asian history. And possibly misled by a Pax America mindset.
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
Oh lor, back to bloody Brexit.
One comment on this only. I think you're wrong Alistair. I believe following the precedents of recent years it would require Acts of Parliament at both ends.
OK, you're the very distinguished lawyer, and I am neither a lawyer nor especially distinguished. But I cannot see how a referendum would be organised without the help of local councils, and I can foresee a very large number of them refusing to take part without that vote - not least, because of the financial implications of it.
And if even one boycotts it, that opens up a whole nasty can of worms about its legitimacy especially if it is again a narrow result.
Australia has very recent precedent on this. A non-statutory referendum on gay marriage was organised by postal vote. It was challenged in the courts and upheld as lawful.
We're not Australians Alistair. We don't pick mediocre opening batsm...ah. Well, at least we have decent spin...ummm. We don't che..er. Well, we don't get caught, anyway!
I don't think that's a valid precedent that would stand against 1978, 1998, 2004, 2011, 2014 and 2016.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
LBJ is very underrated at present. Hoodwinked into, initially anyway, thinking that the Vietnam War was a) in the US interest, b) winnable by his advisors with a very imperfect grasp of SE Asian history. And possibly misled by a Pax America mindset.
He was a bit - odd, towards the finish though. What sort of person when greeted with 'Lovely morning' replies 'thank you?'
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
After the demise of the Dixiecrats, the South switched from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
It is a feature (not a bug). It was specifically designed to ensure that rural states don't get ignored.
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
But Maine and Vermont were Republican in the sense that Lincoln was. I don’t think that one can describe the modern GOP as ‘Lincolnian’ can one?
On that basis, we could point out that between 1868 and 1948 pretty much state in the former Confedaracy voted for the Democrats in pretty much every election. Since 1968 it has consistently been the other way around.
Edit - you could make some parallels between Trump and Lincoln. Both demagogues with limited political experience, both racist, both trampled ruthlessly on the law and the constitution whenever it suited them, both idolised past reason by their admirers and hated beyond measure by their opponents, both had rather dodgy Vice Presidents. Indeed, in political terms arguably the difference with Trump is that unlike Lincoln (who only campaigned in free states) he reached out beyond his core vote.
For all his many unpleasant faults, I hope Trump doesn't emulate Lincoln's final key fact...what happened to Jackson would do nicely.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
Gone With the Wind is, of course literature.
And written considerably after the events, at the peak of KKK and Confederate statue raising. Hardly an objective source of information.
More simply the former slaves voted Republican because the Union had been Republican and the Confederates Democrat. This has changed over the last 50 years, indeed reversed.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
After the demise of the Dixiecrats, the South switched from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
Infamously in 1972 Nixon won every state with one exception.
This did lead to one of the great bumper stickers of all time though:
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
LBJ is very underrated at present. Hoodwinked into, initially anyway, thinking that the Vietnam War was a) in the US interest, b) winnable by his advisors with a very imperfect grasp of SE Asian history. And possibly misled by a Pax America mindset.
He was a bit - odd, towards the finish though. What sort of person when greeted with 'Lovely morning' replies 'thank you?'
We were in Texas a few years ago and commented on the flowers along the central reservations on the highways. Apparently his wife organised planting. LBJ got an Act through Congress to encourage it, the 1965 Highway Beautification Act
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
After the demise of the Dixiecrats, the South switched from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
Infamously in 1972 Nixon won every state with one exception.
This did lead to one of the great bumper stickers of all time though:
But that was of course against the hapless McGovern.
Nixon versus Humphrey saw California voting Republican in 1968. And still more strikingly, Nixon losing against Kennedy saw California vote Republican in 1960.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
After the demise of the Dixiecrats, the South switched from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
More simply the former slaves voted Republican because the Union had been Republican and the Confederates Democrat. This has changed over the last 50 years, indeed reversed.
And after Reconstruction ended, had quite a lot of trouble voting at all of course despite the Fifteenth Amendment until the days of Johnson and the Voting Rights Act.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
After the demise of the Dixiecrats, the South switched from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
Nixon was a Californian.
Fair point, but California voted Republican solidly from 1952 to 1988 (with the sole exception of LBJ's election).
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
Oh lor, back to bloody Brexit.
One comment on this only. I think you're wrong Alistair. I believe following the precedents of recent years it would require Acts of Parliament at both ends.
OK, you're the very distinguished lawyer, and I am neither a lawyer nor especially distinguished. But I cannot see how a referendum would be organised without the help of local councils, and I can foresee a very large number of them refusing to take part without that vote - not least, because of the financial implications of it.
And if even one boycotts it, that opens up a whole nasty can of worms about its legitimacy especially if it is again a narrow result.
Australia has very recent precedent on this. A non-statutory referendum on gay marriage was organised by postal vote. It was challenged in the courts and upheld as lawful.
We're not Australians Alistair. We don't pick mediocre opening batsm...ah. Well, at least we have decent spin...ummm. We don't che..er. Well, we don't get caught, anyway!
I don't think that's a valid precedent that would stand against 1978, 1998, 2004, 2011, 2014 and 2016.
Erm, it established, in a country with a long history of referendums based on a U.K. system, that governments can organise non-statutory advisory referendums.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
After the demise of the Dixiecrats, the South switched from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
Nixon was a Californian.
Am I right in thinking he was the only Californian ever to be President (Ronald Reagan having been born in Illinois)?
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
LBJ is very underrated at present. Hoodwinked into, initially anyway, thinking that the Vietnam War was a) in the US interest, b) winnable by his advisors with a very imperfect grasp of SE Asian history. And possibly misled by a Pax America mindset.
He was a bit - odd, towards the finish though. What sort of person when greeted with 'Lovely morning' replies 'thank you?'
I'd imagine toward the end he was deeply grateful for any meaningless pleasantry compared to being asked (even rhetorically) how many kids he'd killed today.
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
More simply the former slaves voted Republican because the Union had been Republican and the Confederates Democrat. This has changed over the last 50 years, indeed reversed.
And after Reconstruction ended, had quite a lot of trouble voting at all of course despite the Fifteenth Amendment until the days of Johnson and the Voting Rights Act.
It takes quite an imaginative stretch to describe the governing party in the Old South as Democratic.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
After the demise of the Dixiecrats, the South switched from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
Nixon was a Californian.
Am I right in thinking he was the only Californian ever to be President (Ronald Reagan having been born in Illinois)?
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
Oh lor, back to bloody Brexit.
One comment on this only. I think you're wrong Alistair. I believe following the precedents of recent years it would require Acts of Parliament at both ends.
OK, you're the very distinguished lawyer, and I am neither a lawyer nor especially distinguished. But I cannot see how a referendum would be organised without the help of local councils, and I can foresee a very large number of them refusing to take part without that vote - not least, because of the financial implications of it.
And if even one boycotts it, that opens up a whole nasty can of worms about its legitimacy especially if it is again a narrow result.
Australia has very recent precedent on this. A non-statutory referendum on gay marriage was organised by postal vote. It was challenged in the courts and upheld as lawful.
We're not Australians Alistair. We don't pick mediocre opening batsm...ah. Well, at least we have decent spin...ummm. We don't che..er. Well, we don't get caught, anyway!
I don't think that's a valid precedent that would stand against 1978, 1998, 2004, 2011, 2014 and 2016.
Erm, it established, in a country with a long history of referendums based on a U.K. system, that governments can organise non-statutory advisory referendums.
If it established it so clearly that it would apply to us why is there even a question about it now? Is there no possibility that despite the historic and systemic similarities between the nations there may not differences which mean it could not happen here?
Looking at it in a very basic way given that unless an Act makes it binding referenda are not binding it doesn't seem absurd to me that you could hold a non statutory one, but nor does it seem cast iron that you could just because a similar country did so.
More simply the former slaves voted Republican because the Union had been Republican and the Confederates Democrat. This has changed over the last 50 years, indeed reversed.
And after Reconstruction ended, had quite a lot of trouble voting at all of course despite the Fifteenth Amendment until the days of Johnson and the Voting Rights Act.
It takes quite an imaginative stretch to describe the governing party in the Old South as Democratic.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
Yes, but it was the end of a process that had begun 20 years before (you'll notice I mention 1968 as the final turning point upthread).
Though it need not necessarily have been. Up until then civil rights had been to some extent a bipartisan issue, with supporters and opponents in both parties - and note that a larger percentage of Republicans than Democrats in both the House and Senate voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
There is some debate about whether the Republican’s ‘Southern Strategy’ was largely responsible for the perpetuation of racial polarisation in the South, but it was undeniably a deliberate strategy.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
After the demise of the Dixiecrats, the South switched from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
Nixon was a Californian.
Am I right in thinking he was the only Californian ever to be President (Ronald Reagan having been born in Illinois)?
The votes are updated every 10 years based on a census. However the EVs are based on the total number of senators and congressional seats in each state , and since every state gets 2 senators regardless if size, the small states will always be over-represented. If it were done “fairly” then states like WY and OK would get 1 vote.
Why would Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming have 1 and Montana 2? I thought Montana's population was smaller than Vermont's?
No, Montana has over a million people.
Beg its pardon. I thought Vermont had more people than that.
At least you didn't think Oklahoma deserved only 1 ECV lol.
Going by EXACT ECVs (Montana gets 1.72 for instance), Trump would have received 303.12 ECVs..
My main point is the argument that the presidency is skewed by the fact small states get at least 2 ECVs is a really poor one. There are more small democrat states out there than people think.
More simply the former slaves voted Republican because the Union had been Republican and the Confederates Democrat. This has changed over the last 50 years, indeed reversed.
And after Reconstruction ended, had quite a lot of trouble voting at all of course despite the Fifteenth Amendment until the days of Johnson and the Voting Rights Act.
It takes quite an imaginative stretch to describe the governing party in the Old South as Democratic.
Tell that to the Peoples Republic of China, or the Democratic Republic of Korea!
The Times saying that student fees are set to go down to £6.5k from £9.25k. I think a better solution is to have a variable cap per course and uni. The government must now have enough data on which courses and universities perform well in terms of payback rates and which ones don't. Allow the former to charge the full. £9.25k and the latter should have their fees capped to the payback proportion.
The actual story is that some courses will have their fees capped, those which, in fact, are cheaper to run and lead to lower pay in after years.
What concerns me somewhat is the proposal to leave medicine outside the cap. Yes, it's one that leads to high pay, but against that (1) we're short of doctors and (2) it's a very long course, so leads to huge debts anyway.
I would have said there's a strong case for offering to wipe the fees of anyone who works exclusively for the NHS for ten years after graduation, but there may be other objections to that (I am sure Foxy will put me right if there are).
Personally, I would be happy with such NHS bursaries, however recently the government removed such bursaries from Nurses, so the move is the other direction.
We are racking up vast student debt that will wind up being written off. A bit like PFI, and the longer we leave it the more painful it will be to sort out.
That I certainly agree with and that to my mind is the key objection to the student loan system.
Which is why we need to limit the amount poor performing universities can charge or withdraw funding entirely.
No because often the inefficiency lies with employers not universities. Employers favour Oxbridge, for instance, often with no good cause, especially where the degree subject is irrelevant, as is usually the case. It is bad for the company and more importantly for the country. How to prevent this is left as an exercise for the reader.
As with the gender imbalance at the top of big companies, presumably bias to Oxbridge graduates will eventually lead to these companies being usurped by those who don't show bias?
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948...
It was the Civil Rights Act that sealed the Democrats’ electoral fate in the South. As LBJ noted at the time.
After the demise of the Dixiecrats, the South switched from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
Infamously in 1972 Nixon won every state with one exception.
This did lead to one of the great bumper stickers of all time though:
But that was of course against the hapless McGovern.
Nixon versus Humphrey saw California voting Republican in 1968. And still more strikingly, Nixon losing against Kennedy saw California vote Republican in 1960.
It was southern California, Orange County and LA county and the rural areas of the state that won California for the Republicans, San Francisco and the Bay area was a McGovern and liberal Democrat heartland
More simply the former slaves voted Republican because the Union had been Republican and the Confederates Democrat. This has changed over the last 50 years, indeed reversed.
And after Reconstruction ended, had quite a lot of trouble voting at all of course despite the Fifteenth Amendment until the days of Johnson and the Voting Rights Act.
It takes quite an imaginative stretch to describe the governing party in the Old South as Democratic.
Tell that to the Peoples Republic of China, or the Democratic Republic of Korea!
The PDR (Peoples Democratic Republic) of Laos is normally translated as “Please Don’t Rush”.
When I was there 6-7 years ago there were still a few Soviet flags flying;’ the old Hammer and Sickle.
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948.
Put it this way, I prefer my explanation because it sounds a hell of a lot less patronising to African Americans, many of whom were actually well-educated and intelligent. That made the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 at once the most pointless presidential decree of them all (as it didn't free a single slave) and one of the greatest strokes of politics of all time.
Gosh, I sound really cynical.
On my understanding, the Republicans were the party of the establishment with the Democrats representing a rag bag of alienated voters - the agrarian poor, urban immigrants, organised labour and laissez-faire capitalists. The Civil War meant the loss of the North to the Democrats outside their city heartlands, while they had a disaffected South sewn up. At the national level, the party wasn't necessarily segregationist, but as all politics is local, Southern congressmen could keep civil rights legislation at bay regardless. Roosevelt, who was a liberal, probably was in favour of civil rights but he didn't push to do anything about them
If I recall correctly ..... I read Gone With the Wind a long time ago.....the newly enfranchised former slaves were told that there were two parties in the Bible; Publicans and Sinners. This pretty well ensured that they voted Republican, BUT also ensured that their former masters voted Democrat. Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
I've never read Gone With The Wind, and I don't know enough about the processes of voting in the Reconstruction era to comment specifically. My understanding although I could be wrong was that non-whites voted Republican because it was 'their' party and had given them the vote (and they continued to vote for them where able to do so until 1932). White Southerners by contrast I believe voted Democrat out of sheer tribalism - the Republicans were arrogant urban northerners who had stolen their slaves and destroyed their country and given votes to sub-human blacks etc etc etc.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948.
Put it this way, I prefer my explanation because it sounds a hell of a lot less patronising to African Americans, many of whom were actually well-educated and intelligent. That made the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 at once the most pointless presidential decree of them all (as it didn't free a single slave) and one of the greatest strokes of politics of all time.
Gosh, I sound really cynical.
On my understanding, the Republicans were the party of the establishment with the Democrats representing a rag bag of alienated voters - the agrarian poor, urban immigrants, organised labour and laissez-faire capitalists. The Civil War meant the loss of the North to the Democrats outside their city heartlands, while they had a disaffected South sewn up. At the national level, the party wasn't necessarily segregationist, but as all politics is local, Southern congressmen could keep civil rights legislation at bay regardless. Roosevelt, who was a liberal, probably was in favour of civil rights but he didn't push to do anything about them
No. The Democrats, which traced their roots to Thomas Jefferson, were the party of the Establishment, especially the Southern establishment. The Republicans were northern, especially urban insurgents. Indeed, manynof their early members came from the Know-Nothing terrorist and nativist movement.
You are reading the politics of the 1920s, when your comments are more accurate, into the 1850s, when they are not.
As for Roosevelt being a liberal, he wasn't, and he refused to support any civil rights movement (with one exception in 1941) including anti-lynching legislation.
To summarise: for a so-called “People’s Vote,”or rather a “second people’s vote” to succeed in its aims, it needs: a majority in the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, under Art 50(3) of the TEU, or else the UK would be out of the EU before the result of the vote were known and was acted upon; thirdly, a sufficient majority of the electorate giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; fourthly, a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; fifthly, a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament—the Miller case in reverse; and lastly, the continued political will to carry all this out—no comment. The chances of any “People’s Vote”resulting in the UK remaining seem slim indeed. The UK is sloping towards an EU exit, whether we like it or not.
Well, what would a retired High Court Judge and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and King's College, London, know?
What, specifically, do you think he got wrong?
1) the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed; 2) an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period, 3) a sufficient majority giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum; 4) a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice; 5) a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament 6) the continued political will to carry all this out
Don't all six need to happen?
You edited out the answer to your question.
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
David Allen Green arguing three months ago that there wasn’t enough time:
Comments
Used to be......
Anyway, separation of powers is certainly far more genuine in America than here, where 100 MPs are on the government's payroll and the whips are a constant terror.
It's the partisan nature of officials, even legal officials, that strikes me the most. I know people will be affected by their personal politics, but openly appointing some roles based on that just doesn't sit well with me. Perhaps it works better in practice than it appears.
It was fun to learn that Nebraska I think it was has, legally, an officially non partisan state system, but in practice it's still run along partisan lines.
Fifthly also seems incorrect. If a People's Vote is held and won, the Act of Parliament would be forthcoming.
I am not a Labour Party member but some of my friends are.
My daughter and her partner joined when Corbyn became leader.
As for the Guardian , I read it a lot due to the fact it is not behind a paywall.
Careful consideration should apparently be given to longer term bets:https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7217719/bible-prophecy-apocalypse-firs-red-heifer-born-israel/
On the upside the end of Brexit debates approaches.
I'll see everyone there.
What, specifically, do you think he got wrong?
1) the House of Commons to pass the referendum Act needed;
2) an agreement by the EU Council to grant a sufficiently long extension of the two-year period,
3) a sufficient majority giving the “right answer” to the “right question” in the second referendum;
4) a positive answer by the ECJ on the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Art 50 notice;
5) a resolution in the UK of the issue of whether that could be done without an Act of Parliament
6) the continued political will to carry all this out
Don't all six need to happen?
PETER OBORNE: I voted for Brexit, but claims of Russian influence are deeply troubling
Until recently my view was that Macron ( in particular) was glad to see the back of the UK. Ironically, some of the elements of 'The Deal' that Remainers value (the rebate, the opt-outs) make us poor Europeans from 'The Project' perspective. Now that Merkel is a busted flush, I'm not so sure.
I suspect A is going to be just slightly annoyed.
So she was chuffed it went Labour.
I live in York Outer formerly Rydale always been Conservative.
Must be nice to live in a seat where it can change , and your vote counts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/opinion/democrats-midterms-winning-trump.html
But who is that candidate?
The solution is for the Democrats to try and appeal to small rural states.
And -- to show it can be done -- the NE rural states have indeed moved over the last twenty years from Republican to Democrat.
Look at Vermont (once solidly Republican, now Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992) or Maine (a former Republican stronghold, but has now voted Democratic since 1988).
These are small rural states with declining populations.
Edit - you could make some parallels between Trump and Lincoln. Both demagogues with limited political experience, both racist, both trampled ruthlessly on the law and the constitution whenever it suited them, both idolised past reason by their admirers and hated beyond measure by their opponents, both had rather dodgy Vice Presidents. Indeed, in political terms arguably the difference with Trump is that unlike Lincoln (who only campaigned in free states) he reached out beyond his core vote.
For all his many unpleasant faults, I hope Trump doesn't emulate Lincoln's final key fact...what happened to Jackson would do nicely.
'Dinesh D'Souza, who Trump pardoned, has a new documentary that compares the president to Lincoln, and it has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes'
https://tinyurl.com/y8p5rwag
Ryedale was briefly (1986-7) a Liberal seat.
Edit - memory is correct, Maibe’s Senators are R and Ind. people split their votes. The underlying point had weakness.
One quetion (apologies if it's already been asked): how much influence does the governor, as opposed to the state legislature, have over the state apparatus?
Or you could say Trump being chosen was part of God's plan.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8235296/
Southern Democrats could be a pretty nasty bunch at times.
They now vote Republican ironically for much the same reasons, following a disruption that started with Truman and Thurmond in 1948.
Put it this way, I prefer my explanation because it sounds a hell of a lot less patronising to African Americans, many of whom were actually well-educated and intelligent. That made the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 at once the most pointless presidential decree of them all (as it didn't free a single slave) and one of the greatest strokes of politics of all time.
Gosh, I sound really cynical.
1 is wrong. Therefore 2 is probably wrong. And as I noted 5 looks wrong.
One comment on this only. I think you're wrong Alistair. I believe following the precedents of recent years it would require Acts of Parliament at both ends.
OK, you're the very distinguished lawyer, and I am neither a lawyer nor especially distinguished. But I cannot see how a referendum would be organised without the help of local councils, and I can foresee a very large number of them refusing to take part without that vote - not least, because of the financial implications of it.
And if even one boycotts it, that opens up a whole nasty can of worms about its legitimacy especially if it is again a narrow result.
Leavers assume that the “will of the people” is a fixed compass. I doubt that.
As the font of all human knowledge puts it:
Separate legislation (i.e. an Act of Parliament) by the Parliament of the United Kingdom is required for the holding of each UK-wide referendum which is held to set out the referendum question, its format, the franchise for each plebiscite, and how each count is to be conducted. In the following is a list of legislation which has been passed by the UK Parliament to enable the holding of the following UK-wide referendums.
- Referendum Act 1975 (United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975)
- Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 (United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011)
- European Union Referendum Act 2015 (United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_the_United_Kingdom#Legislation
(I too read it a very long time ago so perhaps I was a harsher critic then)
As LBJ noted at the time.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?dq="delivered+the+south+to+the+republican+party"+moyers&ei=t-OMT6D_Ooio8ATwi-2FDg&hl=en&id=x-o9qAO_oEEC&pg=PA167&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
When he signed the act he was euphoric, but late that very night I found him in a melancholy mood as he lay in bed reading the bulldog edition of the Washington Post with headlines celebrating the day. I asked him what was troubling him. "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come," he said.
11 Arizona
9 Colorado
33 Florida*
5 Iowa*
2 Maine*
17 Michigan*
9 Minnesota*
5 Nevada*
2 New Hampshire*
17 North Carolina*
20 Ohio*
22 Pennsylvania*
10 Wisconsin*
8 Alabama*
1 Alaska*
5 Arkansas*
65 California*
6 Connecticut*
2 Delaware*
1 District of Columbia*
17 Georgia*
2 Hawaii*
3 Idaho*
22 Illinois*
11 Indiana*
5 Kansas*
8 Kentucky*
8 Louisiana*
10 Maryland*
11 Massachusetts*
5 Mississippi*
10 Missouri*
2 Montana*
3 Nebraska*
15 New Jersey*
4 New Mexico*
34 New York*
1 North Dakota*
7 Oklahoma*
7 Oregon*
2 Rhode Island*
8 South Carolina*
1 South Dakota*
11 Tennessee*
45 Texas*
5 Utah*
1 Vermont*
14 Virginia*
12 Washington*
3 West Virginia*
1 Wyoming*
235 Clinton
303 Trump
Also Why would Oklahoma get 1 vote ?!
And possibly misled by a Pax America mindset.
I don't think that's a valid precedent that would stand against 1978, 1998, 2004, 2011, 2014 and 2016.
But, other areas have switched too.
The whole of the N East (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) was once solidly Republican.
California voted Republican pretty solidly from 1952 till 1992. For example, it voted for Ford rather than Carter, it voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy, so that even when the Democrats took the Presidency, California voted Republican.
More simply the former slaves voted Republican because the Union had been Republican and the Confederates Democrat. This has changed over the last 50 years, indeed reversed.
This did lead to one of the great bumper stickers of all time though:
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/11/16/dont-blame-me-im-from-massachusetts-bumper-sticker-is-resurrected-post-election
Nixon versus Humphrey saw California voting Republican in 1968. And still more strikingly, Nixon losing against Kennedy saw California vote Republican in 1960.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_home_state
Looking at it in a very basic way given that unless an Act makes it binding referenda are not binding it doesn't seem absurd to me that you could hold a non statutory one, but nor does it seem cast iron that you could just because a similar country did so.
https://youtu.be/uMyjgFj9gwM
Have a good afternoon.
Up until then civil rights had been to some extent a bipartisan issue, with supporters and opponents in both parties - and note that a larger percentage of Republicans than Democrats in both the House and Senate voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
There is some debate about whether the Republican’s ‘Southern Strategy’ was largely responsible for the perpetuation of racial polarisation in the South, but it was undeniably a deliberate strategy.
Going by EXACT ECVs (Montana gets 1.72 for instance), Trump would have received 303.12 ECVs..
My main point is the argument that the presidency is skewed by the fact small states get at least 2 ECVs is a really poor one. There are more small democrat states out there than people think.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_California,_1972
When I was there 6-7 years ago there were still a few Soviet flags flying;’ the old Hammer and Sickle.
You are reading the politics of the 1920s, when your comments are more accurate, into the 1850s, when they are not.
As for Roosevelt being a liberal, he wasn't, and he refused to support any civil rights movement (with one exception in 1941) including anti-lynching legislation.
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1018761111754158080?s=21