I accidentally bookmarked the discussion and the profile preferences sent over 50 notification to my inbox. Whilst I obviously hold you in the greatest esteem, I'm going to have to not respond for a while whilst I unfuck my inbox.
Purged the electoral rolls and moved to individual registration, taking advantage of the fact that populations are more mobile in Labour-leaning areas. As a side-effect, it also damaged Remain's chance in the referendum, which is why we had the last-minute registration drive, which was probably then a factor in May's 2017 defeat so a double whammy to his own side from Cameron's attempted gerrymandering. The reduction to 600 seats was not to save money, as claimed, it was to ensure ALL constituencies were redrawn on the "fixed" counts.
Yes, we ended up with a huge, untested experiment in implementing a new electoral registration system that the government chose to put into effect without any pilot in the most important year of the 5 year electoral cycle. The system of seamless transfer of people from the old registers by data matching failed in areas with mobile populations. Cheap privately rented accommodation especially areas with ethnic minorities were particularly vulnerable, and under-resourced local election officials could not turn that around.
Your theory that it took two years to recover after 2015 is interesting because individual registration can explain both why Labour underperformed to expectations in 2015 and then defied the expectation of a repeat underperformance (by then built in to polling models) in 2017. A further factor, in addition to the 2016 referendum, was that the 2017 general election took place a month after local elections on the same register which woke up many people who found they could not vote in May to the fact that they needed urgently to do something to avoid a repeat performance in June.
I am not convinced. Anyone who has canvassed to a register in an inner city area knows how inaccurate it was; full of people who have long since moved away or died, landlords, former tenants, children long flown the nest.
If the new system had genuinely impacted upon people who ought to have been registered, we would have heard a lot more complaints from people denied the vote. I am only aware that there were a handful, and those mostly in the first year.
Don't muddy the waters with your facts @rcs1000. Remember that Boris will take us out by October 31st deal or no deal and everything will be fantastic for ever.
As an aside do any of our diehard leavers stand to lose anything if things go wrong? To some there is a ludicrous belief in freedom and others that think immigration will come magically down (although it will if the economy is trashed) but a bit of honesty around what their personal exposure is would be interesting. I don’t accept the ‘it won’t happen’ argument so tell us what you are risking personally?
Some of them have revenue streams in currencies other than sterling, by virtue of jobs in other countries, or loyalties, or diversified retirement fund investment. In terms of location, famously the probability of being a PB Leaver increases with time spent abroad and/or possession of a non-Britisj passport.
However it had to be said that PB Diehard Remainers and PB Diehard Leavers are not representative of the wider public
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If the new system had genuinely impacted upon people who ought to have been registered, we would have heard a lot more complaints from people denied the vote. I am only aware that there were a handful, and those mostly in the first year.
However it had to be said that PB Diehard Remainers and PB Diehard Leavers are not representative of the wider public