Monumentally stupid to base your vote on a straight Lab/Con choice. Your approach would gift Guildford to the Conservatives.
The choice is a Labour PM or a Conservative PM. Nobody is gifting anyone anything voting with that knowledge. The reason there was a Tory MP in Guildford previously is not because of somebodies "gift" but because over 30k Guildford voters voted for a Tory MP. Do those voters want Corbyn as Prime Minister or Johnson?
I can assure you a majority of voters want neither as PM, yet one of them will be. A sure sign that our democracy is broken...
Boris Johnson has by far the best net favourable rating of any of the parties leaders. So our democracy seems to be working as intended.
Presumably these movements in individual constituencies are being driven in large part by money being bet. Whilst the national trends can be analysed and even regional trends in the case of Yougov no one has actual hard information about individual constituencies. Even if they did after Ashcroft's attempts the last time who would take it seriously?
- “... no one has actual hard information about individual constituencies.” - No-one? Huh? Are you sure about that?
Yes, many punters are daft and take blind punts, or, much worse, bet with their hearts not their heads. But no-one? No way! *Some* folk out there know exactly how it is going on the ground in their local patch. And some of them will place money based on their uncommon knowledge.
If nobody knew anything then political markets would just be simple lotteries. They are not.
So you think that these market movements are being driven by those with sight of sufficiently wide canvassing material in the constituency to give a picture?
I mean, its possible, but what evidence is there for this? Is it not more likely that the changes in odds simply reflect the desire of the market maker to balance his books?
I am genuinely asking this and would be interested in any views. I got interested in PB principally on this theory, that the bettiing markets were being shaped by those with better info than the general public. The evidence for this over the last 10 years has been, well, slight. The chat, the humour and of course learning how to properly drink a cappuccino, has got me to hang around but the markets have been an unreliable guide.
Right wing: people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, the rich are rich because they worked hard and deserve it, don't give handouts to people who don't contribute to society, you should have to work to have money.
Right wing: it is perfectly fine for wealth to accumulate amongst the already richest people in society through inheritance, allowing a class of people who can be unfathomably wealthy just because their parents were wealthy.
If you were talking about the 18th Century and taxing estates and land from the aristocracy I would agree with you.
But we're not. We're talking about things such as ordinary houses, peoples savings, assets earned through hard work which have already been taxed by the government and when you want to pass that on to your loved ones when you pass away the government takes another slice.
We're not talking about "unfathomable wealth". We're talking about normal peoples assets accumulated over a lifetime.
Quite why you think the world is like Downton Abbey is rather strange.
Maybe it's because I come from a working class background, where many members of my friends and family rent and work in precarious circumstances, I have had to claim out of work benefits whilst suffering from mental health problems and been told that I was fit to work at the same time as I was being bussed on a daily basis to a hospital to be kept on day watch due to suicidal tendencies.
Maybe because whilst I come from the affluent suburbs of St Albans, there has been a noticeable increase in rough sleeping in our city over the last 10 years, there has been a noticeable reduction in public services and a noticeable increase in council tax despite this reduction in public services, and even affluent Tories I know think this is going a bit too far.
Maybe because whilst I live in a country where the UN is saying that the way the state deals with disabled people has literally killed thousands of people, Richard Branson can live in a tax haven and make a load of money and buy up assets built by the state for the common good instead of doing anything particularly useful.
Maybe I think people here talking inheritance tax limits of £125k will affect the average person is super out of touch when the average inheritance amount people get is closer to £11k, so this is really still an issue for the really well off.
Monumentally stupid to base your vote on a straight Lab/Con choice. Your approach would gift Guildford to the Conservatives.
The choice is a Labour PM or a Conservative PM. Nobody is gifting anyone anything voting with that knowledge. The reason there was a Tory MP in Guildford previously is not because of somebodies "gift" but because over 30k Guildford voters voted for a Tory MP. Do those voters want Corbyn as Prime Minister or Johnson?
I can assure you a majority of voters want neither as PM, yet one of them will be. A sure sign that our democracy is broken...
Boris Johnson has by far the best net favourable rating of any of the parties leaders. So our democracy seems to be working as intended.
Best =/= majority. The least smelly turd is not necessarily liked.
Monumentally stupid to base your vote on a straight Lab/Con choice. Your approach would gift Guildford to the Conservatives.
The choice is a Labour PM or a Conservative PM. Nobody is gifting anyone anything voting with that knowledge. The reason there was a Tory MP in Guildford previously is not because of somebodies "gift" but because over 30k Guildford voters voted for a Tory MP. Do those voters want Corbyn as Prime Minister or Johnson?
I can assure you a majority of voters want neither as PM, yet one of them will be. A sure sign that our democracy is broken...
Boris Johnson has by far the best net favourable rating of any of the parties leaders. So our democracy seems to be working as intended.
Best =/= majority. The least smelly turd is not necessarily liked.
Best candidate wins. Find an alternative who's more popular and they can win.
SNP the only party retaining both their Remain voters and their Leave voters. Surely due to SNP voters being far more motivated by Scottish independence than by attitudes to the EU.
Are unionists similarly focused in Scotland? This one is. Not sure about some of those Lib Dems though. They're a bit flaky.
Monumentally stupid to base your vote on a straight Lab/Con choice. Your approach would gift Guildford to the Conservatives.
The choice is a Labour PM or a Conservative PM. Nobody is gifting anyone anything voting with that knowledge. The reason there was a Tory MP in Guildford previously is not because of somebodies "gift" but because over 30k Guildford voters voted for a Tory MP. Do those voters want Corbyn as Prime Minister or Johnson?
I can assure you a majority of voters want neither as PM, yet one of them will be. A sure sign that our democracy is broken...
Boris Johnson has by far the best net favourable rating of any of the parties leaders. So our democracy seems to be working as intended.
If working you mean someone gain get total and absolute power with 35% of the vote then it is but it’s a shit system that claims to be democratic.
Right wing: people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, the rich are rich because they worked hard and deserve it, don't give handouts to people who don't contribute to society, you should have to work to have money.
Right wing: it is perfectly fine for wealth to accumulate amongst the already richest people in society through inheritance, allowing a class of people who can be unfathomably wealthy just because their parents were wealthy.
If you were talking about the 18th Century and taxing estates and land from the aristocracy I would agree with you.
But we're not. We're talking about things such as ordinary houses, peoples savings, assets earned through hard work which have already been taxed by the government and when you want to pass that on to your loved ones when you pass away the government takes another slice.
We're not talking about "unfathomable wealth". We're talking about normal peoples assets accumulated over a lifetime.
Quite why you think the world is like Downton Abbey is rather strange.
Maybe it's because I come from a working class background, where many members of my friends and family rent and work in precarious circumstances, I have had to claim out of work benefits whilst suffering from mental health problems and been told that I was fit to work at the same time as I was being bussed on a daily basis to a hospital to be kept on day watch due to suicidal tendencies.
Maybe because whilst I come from the affluent suburbs of St Albans, there has been a noticeable increase in rough sleeping in our city over the last 10 years, there has been a noticeable reduction in public services and a noticeable increase in council tax despite this reduction in public services, and even affluent Tories I know think this is going a bit too far.
Maybe because whilst I live in a country where the UN is saying that the way the state deals with disabled people has literally killed thousands of people, Richard Branson can live in a tax haven and make a load of money and buy up assets built by the state for the common good instead of doing anything particularly useful.
Maybe I think people here talking inheritance tax limits of £125k will affect the average person is super out of touch when the average inheritance amount people get is closer to £11k, so this is really still an issue for the really well off.
Or on the other hand, people will see it as 'I want to help my son/daughter' out with X/Y/Z and they've got to pay a chunk of it across to the tax man up front..
Some people will. Others will not see why somebody already comfortable receiving a large sum of unearned income in late middle age should be exempt from tax on it. This is a "values" thing. How you view it will depend on how you answer the following question -
What is the single biggest determinant of material life outcome? (i) Talent and Hard Work. (ii) Luck.
Forget all the rest the above question is IMO the fundamental dividing line between left and right. If you answer (i) you will be right of centre, (ii) you will be on the left.
Or on the other hand, people will see it as 'I want to help my son/daughter' out with X/Y/Z and they've got to pay a chunk of it across to the tax man up front..
Some people will. Others will not see why somebody already comfortable receiving a large sum of unearned income in late middle age should be exempt from tax on it. This is a "values" thing. How you view it will depend on how you answer the following question -
What is the single biggest determinant of material life outcome? (i) Talent and Hard Work. (ii) Luck.
Forget all the rest the above question is IMO the fundamental dividing line between left and right. If you answer (i) you will be right of centre, (ii) you will be on the left.
If people try it, I bet it shows I'm right.
Luck defines where you start, talent and hard work can determine where you end up
Monumentally stupid to base your vote on a straight Lab/Con choice. Your approach would gift Guildford to the Conservatives.
The choice is a Labour PM or a Conservative PM. Nobody is gifting anyone anything voting with that knowledge. The reason there was a Tory MP in Guildford previously is not because of somebodies "gift" but because over 30k Guildford voters voted for a Tory MP. Do those voters want Corbyn as Prime Minister or Johnson?
I can assure you a majority of voters want neither as PM, yet one of them will be. A sure sign that our democracy is broken...
Boris Johnson has by far the best net favourable rating of any of the parties leaders. So our democracy seems to be working as intended.
If working you mean someone gain get total and absolute power with 35% of the vote then it is but it’s a shit system that claims to be democratic.
Yes working. Its a perfectly democratic system - every single MP without fail was the most popular candidate in their seat.
Rather than whining about the voting system how about trying to win a plurality of the votes instead?
Which "assets" has Richard Branson bought that were built by the State for the "common good"?
If you're talking about the railways - they were originally built by private money and enterprise before being stolen by the State.
If you think that the railway infrastructure and rolling stock as at the early 1990s were all there through private investment, you might need to get yourself a little up to date. It's true that in the C19th there was a lot of private investment in railways. But a lot changed in the 100-150 years between the beginning and the privatisation in the 90s.
Remarkable lack of awareness of how much of the Brexit process remains to be done, and contested.
Certainly not the overall process with regards trade agreements and negotiations but in terms of the broader picture of settling whether we leave or not then yes. People will be able to pick up a paper or switch on the news without hearing about Brexit every day which will please most on both sides!
Monumentally stupid to base your vote on a straight Lab/Con choice. Your approach would gift Guildford to the Conservatives.
The choice is a Labour PM or a Conservative PM. Nobody is gifting anyone anything voting with that knowledge. The reason there was a Tory MP in Guildford previously is not because of somebodies "gift" but because over 30k Guildford voters voted for a Tory MP. Do those voters want Corbyn as Prime Minister or Johnson?
I can assure you a majority of voters want neither as PM, yet one of them will be. A sure sign that our democracy is broken...
Boris Johnson has by far the best net favourable rating of any of the parties leaders. So our democracy seems to be working as intended.
If working you mean someone gain get total and absolute power with 35% of the vote then it is but it’s a shit system that claims to be democratic.
Yes working. Its a perfectly democratic system - every single MP without fail was the most popular candidate in their seat.
Rather than whining about the voting system how about trying to win a plurality of the votes instead?
Not an easy task when the buggins turn parties ensure perpetual shut out telling the electorate to stop the other lot vote for us.
Or on the other hand, people will see it as 'I want to help my son/daughter' out with X/Y/Z and they've got to pay a chunk of it across to the tax man up front..
Some people will. Others will not see why somebody already comfortable receiving a large sum of unearned income in late middle age should be exempt from tax on it. This is a "values" thing. How you view it will depend on how you answer the following question -
What is the single biggest determinant of material life outcome? (i) Talent and Hard Work. (ii) Luck.
Forget all the rest the above question is IMO the fundamental dividing line between left and right. If you answer (i) you will be right of centre, (ii) you will be on the left.
If people try it, I bet it shows I'm right.
iii) Living in a country with sound institutions and rule of law. After that, it's a mix of i) and ii)
Tim Walker exposing divisions within Liberal party about opposing remoaner candidates in Labour party on SKY News
I agree with Tim.
Why stand down for Tories Grieve and Soubry who haven't an earthly of winning but not for Duffield.
Asking for a friend who thinks it's because Swinson is a Tory.
Bollocks again.
Why do you want Tories leave supporting Candidate to gain Canterbury from ultra Remainer Duffield? Same in High Peak and dozens of other Lab Tory marginals.
Bollocks wouldn't be an appropriate response!
Because Remainers don't want Remain for its own sake, they want it because they think it is the best bet for economic stability. Labour aren't currently offering this.
Is the alternative hard Brexit without economic stability?
Remarkable lack of awareness of how much of the Brexit process remains to be done, and contested.
Difficult to know what this question means. I mean, the LD approach to Brexit would bring the process to a decisive end, though in a way not likely to be universally popular. Does the low score for the Lib Dems reflect people's expectation that they're not likely to be in a position to do anything about it?
Presumably these movements in individual constituencies are being driven in large part by money being bet. Whilst the national trends can be analysed and even regional trends in the case of Yougov no one has actual hard information about individual constituencies. Even if they did after Ashcroft's attempts the last time who would take it seriously?
- “... no one has actual hard information about individual constituencies.” - No-one? Huh? Are you sure about that?
Yes, many punters are daft and take blind punts, or, much worse, bet with their hearts not their heads. But no-one? No way! *Some* folk out there know exactly how it is going on the ground in their local patch. And some of them will place money based on their uncommon knowledge.
If nobody knew anything then political markets would just be simple lotteries. They are not.
So you think that these market movements are being driven by those with sight of sufficiently wide canvassing material in the constituency to give a picture?
I mean, its possible, but what evidence is there for this? Is it not more likely that the changes in odds simply reflect the desire of the market maker to balance his books?
I am genuinely asking this and would be interested in any views. I got interested in PB principally on this theory, that the bettiing markets were being shaped by those with better info than the general public. The evidence for this over the last 10 years has been, well, slight. The chat, the humour and of course learning how to properly drink a cappuccino, has got me to hang around but the markets have been an unreliable guide.
- “ The evidence for this over the last 10 years has been, well, slight.”
Huh?
I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would imagine that of the 650 constituency markets priced up in 2017, over 90% were won by the FAV.
We remember the stunning exceptions, but if the FAV didn’t usually win, the bookies would soon be out of business
Monumentally stupid to base your vote on a straight Lab/Con choice. Your approach would gift Guildford to the Conservatives.
The choice is a Labour PM or a Conservative PM. Nobody is gifting anyone anything voting with that knowledge. The reason there was a Tory MP in Guildford previously is not because of somebodies "gift" but because over 30k Guildford voters voted for a Tory MP. Do those voters want Corbyn as Prime Minister or Johnson?
I can assure you a majority of voters want neither as PM, yet one of them will be. A sure sign that our democracy is broken...
Boris Johnson has by far the best net favourable rating of any of the parties leaders. So our democracy seems to be working as intended.
If working you mean someone gain get total and absolute power with 35% of the vote then it is but it’s a shit system that claims to be democratic.
Yes working. Its a perfectly democratic system - every single MP without fail was the most popular candidate in their seat.
Rather than whining about the voting system how about trying to win a plurality of the votes instead?
Not an easy task when the buggins turn parties ensure perpetual shut out telling the electorate to stop the other lot vote for us.
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Right wing: people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, the rich are rich because they worked hard and deserve it, don't give handouts to people who don't contribute to society, you should have to work to have money.
Right wing: it is perfectly fine for wealth to accumulate amongst the already richest people in society through inheritance, allowing a class of people who can be unfathomably wealthy just because their parents were wealthy.
If you were talking about the 18th Century and taxing estates and land from the aristocracy I would agree with you.
But we're not. We're talking about things such as ordinary houses, peoples savings, assets earned through hard work which have already been taxed by the government and when you want to pass that on to your loved ones when you pass away the government takes another slice.
We're not talking about "unfathomable wealth". We're talking about normal peoples assets accumulated over a lifetime.
Quite why you think the world is like Downton Abbey is rather strange.
Maybe it's because I come from a working class background, where many members of my friends and family rent and work in precarious circumstances, I have had to claim out of work benefits whilst suffering from mental health problems and been told that I was fit to work at the same time as I was being bussed on a daily basis to a hospital to be kept on day watch due to suicidal tendencies.
Maybe because whilst I come from the affluent suburbs of St Albans, there has been a noticeable increase in rough sleeping in our city over the last 10 years, there has been a noticeable reduction in public services and a noticeable increase in council tax despite this reduction in public services, and even affluent Tories I know think this is going a bit too far.
Maybe because whilst I live in a country where the UN is saying that the way the state deals with disabled people has literally killed thousands of people, Richard Branson can live in a tax haven and make a load of money and buy up assets built by the state for the common good instead of doing anything particularly useful.
Maybe I think people here talking inheritance tax limits of £125k will affect the average person is super out of touch when the average inheritance amount people get is closer to £11k, so this is really still an issue for the really well off.
Tim Walker exposing divisions within Liberal party about opposing remoaner candidates in Labour party on SKY News
I agree with Tim.
Why stand down for Tories Grieve and Soubry who haven't an earthly of winning but not for Duffield.
Asking for a friend who thinks it's because Swinson is a Tory.
Bollocks again.
Why do you want Tories leave supporting Candidate to gain Canterbury from ultra Remainer Duffield? Same in High Peak and dozens of other Lab Tory marginals.
Bollocks wouldn't be an appropriate response!
Because Remainers don't want Remain for its own sake, they want it because they think it is the best bet for economic stability. Labour aren't currently offering this.
Is the alternative hard Brexit without economic stability?
I'm merely pointing out that for those seeking economic stability a vote for Labour isn't necessarily the obvuous choice.
Brexit, especially hard Brexit, which may or may not happen, is a leap into the unknown. Many forecasts suggest a decline relative to the alternative case where the UK remains, though not necessarily an absolute decline. It is certainly an option with considerable uncertainty. Whereas the brand of economics and politics that Jeremy Corbyn appears to favour has resulted in a significant and often disastrous absolute decline in living standards everywhere it has been tried. Economically, your offer is one of trying to encourage people to reject a leap into the dark unknown by giving them the comforting certainty of a pit of venomous snakes to leap into.
Luck defines where you start, talent and hard work can determine where you end up
Yes of course. But the question is "biggest single determinant" so one has to think carefully about it and then choose.
I find that choice really difficult - does that mean I'm a centrist? ;-)
Seriously though, does luck include who your parents are? If so, single biggest determinant (obviously if they are rich, but also what they put into you, even if not. My parents were relatively poor, but their outlook, intelligence - they don't consider themselves intelligent and left education at 14/15, but they are - and putting their children first gave me the motivation and opportunities to be relatively well off). From birth onwards, talent and hard work are more important than luck, I think, although luck also matters. But if you're born in the right circumstances it's very hard to really suffer materially and if you're born in the wrong circumstances you have to be really quite special to succeed.
Monumentally stupid to base your vote on a straight Lab/Con choice. Your approach would gift Guildford to the Conservatives.
The choice is a Labour PM or a Conservative PM. Nobody is gifting anyone anything voting with that knowledge. The reason there was a Tory MP in Guildford previously is not because of somebodies "gift" but because over 30k Guildford voters voted for a Tory MP. Do those voters want Corbyn as Prime Minister or Johnson?
I can assure you a majority of voters want neither as PM, yet one of them will be. A sure sign that our democracy is broken...
Boris Johnson has by far the best net favourable rating of any of the parties leaders. So our democracy seems to be working as intended.
If working you mean someone gain get total and absolute power with 35% of the vote then it is but it’s a shit system that claims to be democratic.
Yes working. Its a perfectly democratic system - every single MP without fail was the most popular candidate in their seat.
Rather than whining about the voting system how about trying to win a plurality of the votes instead?
Not an easy task when the buggins turn parties ensure perpetual shut out telling the electorate to stop the other lot vote for us.
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Four million Ukip voters say you're wrong. But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
Remarkable lack of awareness of how much of the Brexit process remains to be done, and contested.
Stance 1 - Happiness from Conservatives as their party is seen to be bringing the entire saga to an end Stance 2 - That means there are lots of people who will be sure that this is bringing it to a conclusion who will be very pissed off if we go through 2020 with saga plot elements like "will we extend the transition period?" "Will we end up on No Deal terms?" "Will we have to accept huge swathes of EU legislation?" and then into 2021. What could possibly go wrong?
Don't know which stance will be more accurate, to be honest.
Median wealth per household is c.£275,000, so I don't know where that £11,000 figure comes from, unless it just includes tiny bequests.
Median bequeath it seems.
I imagine that could distort things since lets say a grandparent on average leaves a chunk to their children then a smaller chunk to each grandchild and then even smaller chunks to other people the median bequeath would a smaller chunk left to a grandchild. Unless someone leaves everything to somebody the median bequeath would exclude the primary people chosen to inherit most of the inheritance and would look at the smaller ones.
One of those instances where you can truly distort things by using median or mean.
Maybe it's because I come from a working class background, where many members of my friends and family rent and work in precarious circumstances, I have had to claim out of work benefits whilst suffering from mental health problems and been told that I was fit to work at the same time as I was being bussed on a daily basis to a hospital to be kept on day watch due to suicidal tendencies.
Maybe because whilst I come from the affluent suburbs of St Albans, there has been a noticeable increase in rough sleeping in our city over the last 10 years, there has been a noticeable reduction in public services and a noticeable increase in council tax despite this reduction in public services, and even affluent Tories I know think this is going a bit too far.
Maybe because whilst I live in a country where the UN is saying that the way the state deals with disabled people has literally killed thousands of people, Richard Branson can live in a tax haven and make a load of money and buy up assets built by the state for the common good instead of doing anything particularly useful.
Maybe I think people here talking inheritance tax limits of £125k will affect the average person is super out of touch when the average inheritance amount people get is closer to £11k, so this is really still an issue for the really well off.
Possible that household wealth doesn't convert to inherited wealth if people spend it before they die / take money out of the house for refurbs to help getting older. Also possible that many people spread their inheritance around; I'm one of 7 grandchildren (1 great grandchild) on one side, one of 3 on the other.
Corbyn in Dundee ? *Checks Scottish polls, checks Dundee results*
Bit optimistic isn't it ?
I'm kind of getting the feeling Corbyn doesn't want to win. I think he's o.k with the Boris brexit deal. Corbyn 2017 wouldn't have said that thing about the ISIS leader.
If he makes another "gaffe" like that, then I'll be sure he doesn't actually want to be PM.
Right wing: people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, the rich are rich because they worked hard and deserve it, don't give handouts to people who don't contribute to society, you should have to work to have money.
Right wing: it is perfectly fine for wealth to accumulate amongst the already richest people in society through inheritance, allowing a class of people who can be unfathomably wealthy just because their parents were wealthy.
If you were talking about the 18th Century and taxing estates and land from the aristocracy I would agree with you.
But we're not. We're talking about things such as ordinary houses, peoples savings, assets earned through hard work which have already been taxed by the government and when you want to pass that on to your loved ones when you pass away the government takes another slice.
We're not talking about "unfathomable wealth". We're talking about normal peoples assets accumulated over a lifetime.
Quite why you think the world is like Downton Abbey is rather strange.
Maybe it's because I come from a working class background, where many members of my friends and family rent and work in precarious circumstances, I have had to claim out of work benefits whilst suffering from mental health problems and been told that I was fit to work at the same time as I was being bussed on a daily basis to a hospital to be kept on day watch due to suicidal tendencies.
Maybe because whilst I come from the affluent suburbs of St Albans, there has been a noticeable increase in rough sleeping in our city over the last 10 years, there has been a noticeable reduction in public services and a noticeable increase in council tax despite this reduction in public services, and even affluent Tories I know think this is going a bit too far.
Maybe because whilst I live in a country where the UN is saying that the way the state deals with disabled people has literally killed thousands of people, Richard Branson can live in a tax haven and make a load of money and buy up assets built by the state for the common good instead of doing anything particularly useful.
Maybe I think people here talking inheritance tax limits of £125k will affect the average person is super out of touch when the average inheritance amount people get is closer to £11k, so this is really still an issue for the really well off.
but I thought Jeremy Corbyn was good at these things.
One of the 50 cent crew told me so just yesterday.
I mean, I said yesterday I thought Corbyn was better than Johnson at these things, as Johnson tends to just seem confused, whereas Corbyn actually seems to engage. I said a good response can be sympathy, or disagreeing.
Yes, Corbyn is disagreeing with this man, but he at least seems willing to say something. As it goes on he gives out applause lines for supporters; Johnson can't even manage those in similar scenarios. Maybe it comes across better because Corbyn has a "friendly" audience whereas Johnson doesn't, but I see that encounter as better for Corbyn than the ones Johnson had yesterday.
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Four million Ukip voters say you're wrong. But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
but I thought Jeremy Corbyn was good at these things.
One of the 50 cent crew told me so just yesterday.
Did you watch the video? He handled it very well.
But like Johnson yesterday the headline will be 'Corbyn heckled by angry voter' and in uncharitable publications will be something like 'heckler evicted by Corbyns goons' That's politics
but I thought Jeremy Corbyn was good at these things.
One of the 50 cent crew told me so just yesterday.
Did you watch the video? He handled it very well.
The problem is 3 weeks out from the last election he was drawing huge crowds, he had a stadium in Birkenhead chanting his name. 4 weeks to go this time and he's being heckled on a daily basis and his campaign is tired and lethargic while his vibrant young support from 2017 seem shy.
It may be partly the effect of a December election but if in a week's time there is no sign of the 2017 Corbyn campaign magic then Labour will really begin to panic.
Tim Walker exposing divisions within Liberal party about opposing remoaner candidates in Labour party on SKY News
I agree with Tim.
Why stand down for Tories Grieve and Soubry who haven't an earthly of winning but not for Duffield.
Asking for a friend who thinks it's because Swinson is a Tory.
The Lib Dems don't see themselves as the rural wing of the Labour Party.
The Lib Dems don't buy into the demonization of everyone who is seen as against the left (Conservatives, the centre-left, the media, Jews etc) so that makes them Tories.
Presumably these movements in individual constituencies are being driven in large part by money being bet. Whilst the national trends can be analysed and even regional trends in the case of Yougov no one has actual hard information about individual constituencies. Even if they did after Ashcroft's attempts the last time who would take it seriously?
- “... no one has actual hard information about individual constituencies.” - No-one? Huh? Are you sure about that?
Yes, many punters are daft and take blind punts, or, much worse, bet with their hearts not their heads. But no-one? No way! *Some* folk out there know exactly how it is going on the ground in their local patch. And some of them will place money based on their uncommon knowledge.
If nobody knew anything then political markets would just be simple lotteries. They are not.
So you think that these market movements are being driven by those with sight of sufficiently wide canvassing material in the constituency to give a picture?
I mean, its possible, but what evidence is there for this? Is it not more likely that the changes in odds simply reflect the desire of the market maker to balance his books?
I am genuinely asking this and would be interested in any views. I got interested in PB principally on this theory, that the bettiing markets were being shaped by those with better info than the general public. The evidence for this over the last 10 years has been, well, slight. The chat, the humour and of course learning how to properly drink a cappuccino, has got me to hang around but the markets have been an unreliable guide.
- “ The evidence for this over the last 10 years has been, well, slight.”
Huh?
I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would imagine that of the 650 constituency markets priced up in 2017, over 90% were won by the FAV.
We remember the stunning exceptions, but if the FAV didn’t usually win, the bookies would soon be out of business
I don’t consider 90% accuracy to be “slight”.
I think you are missing the point Stuart. 80% of seats, approximately 500, could be predicted with pretty much total certainty right now. Of the remaining 20% we can have a strong favourite based on results only 2 years ago plus national trends in the majority and maybe 100 genuine toss ups. But what is triggering movements in the odds in individual constituencies now, especially when the big picture of national polling is not moving very much? To go back to your original post what has happened in Bracon and Radnorshire?
Or on the other hand, people will see it as 'I want to help my son/daughter' out with X/Y/Z and they've got to pay a chunk of it across to the tax man up front..
Some people will. Others will not see why somebody already comfortable receiving a large sum of unearned income in late middle age should be exempt from tax on it. This is a "values" thing. How you view it will depend on how you answer the following question -
What is the single biggest determinant of material life outcome? (i) Talent and Hard Work. (ii) Luck.
Forget all the rest the above question is IMO the fundamental dividing line between left and right. If you answer (i) you will be right of centre, (ii) you will be on the left.
If people try it, I bet it shows I'm right.
You need any two out of luck, hard work and connections. If you don't have one of them then you need the other two. Brains are bullshit; I've known plenty of geniuses living in penury.
but I thought Jeremy Corbyn was good at these things.
One of the 50 cent crew told me so just yesterday.
I mean, I said yesterday I thought Corbyn was better than Johnson at these things, as Johnson tends to just seem confused, whereas Corbyn actually seems to engage. I said a good response can be sympathy, or disagreeing.
Yes, Corbyn is disagreeing with this man, but he at least seems willing to say something. As it goes on he gives out applause lines for supporters; Johnson can't even manage those in similar scenarios. Maybe it comes across better because Corbyn has a "friendly" audience whereas Johnson doesn't, but I see that encounter as better for Corbyn than the ones Johnson had yesterday.
Two completely different scenarios.
This one is someone heckling Corbyn who tries to shut him up and say that he can ask a question later. Yesterday we had videos of people speaking to Johnson and Johnson listening sympathetically then replying.
Somehow I think if Johnson had acted like Corbyn and said basically "shut up, I'm talking now, listen to me and you can talk later" that would not have gone down well!
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Four million Ukip voters say you're wrong. But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
FPTP is fine if you're mostly electing individuals, with their own consciences and the freedom to act on that conscience. We've seen now, with Johnson's ruthless enforcement of party discipline that we do not have such a system. People vote for parties, and they elect representatives of those parties, rather than representatives of their constituency.
Therefore we should use a voting system that is suitable for electing parties rather than individuals. British Proportional Representation is my favourite version, but there are others.
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Four million Ukip voters say you're wrong. But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
So if, say, 6 parties stood in every seat, and in all those seats party x got 16.6% and won every one by 1 vote, despite the fact 83% of the population voted against that party, you'd say it is fine they got 100% of the representation? I understand that is the way the current system works, but are you saying you think that is a healthy, well functioning, democratic system?
but I thought Jeremy Corbyn was good at these things.
One of the 50 cent crew told me so just yesterday.
I mean, I said yesterday I thought Corbyn was better than Johnson at these things, as Johnson tends to just seem confused, whereas Corbyn actually seems to engage. I said a good response can be sympathy, or disagreeing.
Yes, Corbyn is disagreeing with this man, but he at least seems willing to say something. As it goes on he gives out applause lines for supporters; Johnson can't even manage those in similar scenarios. Maybe it comes across better because Corbyn has a "friendly" audience whereas Johnson doesn't, but I see that encounter as better for Corbyn than the ones Johnson had yesterday.
I actually agree with you.
Corbyn's issue is that he very rarely, if at all, addresses audiences which are not the usual rent-a-mob devout supporters. He's always preaching to his choir.
May didn't address anyone. Boris is putting himself out there but he inevitably attracts the heckles as he is, well, PM. But he does need to do better.
John Major was excellent. Everyone poo-pooed his "soap box" in 1992, but I doubt there would be any politician now who would dare to do that now - far too much scope for things to go wrong and be on Twatter 30 seconds later.
Stick both of them on soapboxes in the middle of a random High Street (not in their heartlands) on a Saturday afternoon and see how they get on. It wouldn't be pretty for either I think.
Or on the other hand, people will see it as 'I want to help my son/daughter' out with X/Y/Z and they've got to pay a chunk of it across to the tax man up front..
Some people will. Others will not see why somebody already comfortable receiving a large sum of unearned income in late middle age should be exempt from tax on it. This is a "values" thing. How you view it will depend on how you answer the following question -
What is the single biggest determinant of material life outcome? (i) Talent and Hard Work. (ii) Luck.
Forget all the rest the above question is IMO the fundamental dividing line between left and right. If you answer (i) you will be right of centre, (ii) you will be on the left.
If people try it, I bet it shows I'm right.
You need any two out of luck, hard work and connections. If you don't have one of them then you need the other two. Brains are bullshit; I've known plenty of geniuses living in penury.
The main drivers fot success are hard work and smart choices. The main negative impact of poverty is a lack of good advice, financial distress and social culture that encourages bad choices.
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Four million Ukip voters say you're wrong. But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
So if, say, 6 parties stood in every seat, and in all those seats party x got 16.6% and won every one by 1 vote, despite the fact 83% of the population voted against that party, you'd say it is fine they got 100% of the representation? I understand that is the way the current system works, but are you saying you think that is a healthy, well functioning, democratic system?
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Four million Ukip voters say you're wrong. But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
You'll note I addressed the point in my original reply. But I'll say it again. All votes are equal at a constituency level. At a constituency level, them not winning owt was fair. At an aggregate level the number of votes cast for a particular party do not give a fair result in parliament. You are choosing one fairness over another. That's your prerogative, I'm just bringing it all out into the open so people can see that.
Or on the other hand, people will see it as 'I want to help my son/daughter' out with X/Y/Z and they've got to pay a chunk of it across to the tax man up front..
Some people will. Others will not see why somebody already comfortable receiving a large sum of unearned income in late middle age should be exempt from tax on it. This is a "values" thing. How you view it will depend on how you answer the following question -
What is the single biggest determinant of material life outcome? (i) Talent and Hard Work. (ii) Luck.
Forget all the rest the above question is IMO the fundamental dividing line between left and right. If you answer (i) you will be right of centre, (ii) you will be on the left.
If people try it, I bet it shows I'm right.
You need any two out of luck, hard work and connections. If you don't have one of them then you need the other two. Brains are bullshit; I've known plenty of geniuses living in penury.
This is self-fulfilling.
If I say I only had hard work (no connections, no luck) but still I was successful, you say I must have been lucky then.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
FPTP is fine if you're mostly electing individuals, with their own consciences and the freedom to act on that conscience. We've seen now, with Johnson's ruthless enforcement of party discipline that we do not have such a system. People vote for parties, and they elect representatives of those parties, rather than representatives of their constituency.
Therefore we should use a voting system that is suitable for electing parties rather than individuals. British Proportional Representation is my favourite version, but there are others.
We are electing individuals with a party label, our system manages both. MPs individualism trumps their party label as we have seen in recent years: Johnson could not ruthlessly enforce party discipline, if he stripped an MP of the whip that didn't strip them of their seat they remained in Parliament for the rest of their term as an elected individual.
We also see every week in Parliament people bringing up their own local constituents concerns. Yes there are national issues but there are also issues of local concern that can be brought up to our local MPs. Going to national PR breaks that local link.
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Four million Ukip voters say you're wrong. But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
You'll note I addressed the point in my original reply. But I'll say it again. All votes are equal at a constituency level. At a constituency level, them not winning owt was fair. At an aggregate level the number of votes cast for a particular party do not give a fair result in parliament. You are choosing one fairness over another. That's your prerogative, I'm just bringing it all out into the open so people can see that.
We don't vote aggregate we vote in constituencies. Those constituency MPs then meet up. Aggregate means nothing.
Or on the other hand, people will see it as 'I want to help my son/daughter' out with X/Y/Z and they've got to pay a chunk of it across to the tax man up front..
Some people will. Others will not see why somebody already comfortable receiving a large sum of unearned income in late middle age should be exempt from tax on it. This is a "values" thing. How you view it will depend on how you answer the following question -
What is the single biggest determinant of material life outcome? (i) Talent and Hard Work. (ii) Luck.
Forget all the rest the above question is IMO the fundamental dividing line between left and right. If you answer (i) you will be right of centre, (ii) you will be on the left.
If people try it, I bet it shows I'm right.
You need any two out of luck, hard work and connections. If you don't have one of them then you need the other two. Brains are bullshit; I've known plenty of geniuses living in penury.
The main drivers fot success are hard work and smart choices. The main negative impact of poverty is a lack of good advice, financial distress and social culture that encourages bad choices.
Overwhelmingly, the main driver for success is having wealthy parents.
A lot of people make the bad choice of having poor parents.
On inheritance tax, my parents' main asset is a house I'd guess would be valued somewhere between £300-£400k (south east, quite desirable location, decoration and layout old-fashioned so new buyer would probably do a chunk of work). I'm not local and don't know the market - £200-£250k for an equivalent house where I live in Yorkshire. I have one brother, so in principle a substantial inheritance.
I'd like my parents to blow it all via equity release or similar, take lots of holidays, buy a new car, spend some money on the house to modernise it a bit and enjoy it. If they need care as they age I'd like them to be able to pay for whatever is needed through the equity in the house (better still that state services were very good and they get to spend the money on other stuff).
If there's anything left, I don't see how I could possibly feel hard done by to pay at least my normal rate of income tax on the *whole* inheritance. I'd consider myself positively greedy if I complained about getting taxed on anything over £125k.
Luck defines where you start, talent and hard work can determine where you end up
Yes of course. But the question is "biggest single determinant" so one has to think carefully about it and then choose.
I find that choice really difficult - does that mean I'm a centrist? ;-)
Seriously though, does luck include who your parents are? If so, single biggest determinant (obviously if they are rich, but also what they put into you, even if not. My parents were relatively poor, but their outlook, intelligence - they don't consider themselves intelligent and left education at 14/15, but they are - and putting their children first gave me the motivation and opportunities to be relatively well off). From birth onwards, talent and hard work are more important than luck, I think, although luck also matters. But if you're born in the right circumstances it's very hard to really suffer materially and if you're born in the wrong circumstances you have to be really quite special to succeed.
Read 'The Black Swan'. It's by an author who understands probabilities and randomness, i.e. very far from alternating heads and tails.
Much of what's routinely attributed to talent or hard work is due to sheer luck in who one meets, who one knows... or who daddy knows. The ups and downs in my own life reflect these influences, including applied randomness.
But hopefully on a betting website most people do understand randomness ...
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
FPTP is fine if you're mostly electing individuals, with their own consciences and the freedom to act on that conscience. We've seen now, with Johnson's ruthless enforcement of party discipline that we do not have such a system. People vote for parties, and they elect representatives of those parties, rather than representatives of their constituency.
Therefore we should use a voting system that is suitable for electing parties rather than individuals. British Proportional Representation is my favourite version, but there are others.
We are electing individuals with a party label, our system manages both. MPs individualism trumps their party label as we have seen in recent years: Johnson could not ruthlessly enforce party discipline, if he stripped an MP of the whip that didn't strip them of their seat they remained in Parliament for the rest of their term as an elected individual.
We also see every week in Parliament people bringing up their own local constituents concerns. Yes there are national issues but there are also issues of local concern that can be brought up to our local MPs. Going to national PR breaks that local link.
British Proportional Representation is the compromise between national PR and FPTP that we need. You could have 3-5 MPs per constituency, so they would still represent a distinct local area. We wouldn't have the abomination of party lists.
None of the MPs who Johnson had prevented from standing as Conservative candidates are likely to win re-election. That's a fairly effective purge of his political opponents, not in keeping with the theoretical principles of FPTP.
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Four million Ukip voters say you're wrong. But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
You'll note I addressed the point in my original reply. But I'll say it again. All votes are equal at a constituency level. At a constituency level, them not winning owt was fair. At an aggregate level the number of votes cast for a particular party do not give a fair result in parliament. You are choosing one fairness over another. That's your prerogative, I'm just bringing it all out into the open so people can see that.
We don't vote aggregate we vote in constituencies. Those constituency MPs then meet up. Aggregate means nothing.
Yes, but some people think we should think about the aggregate vote. You can be of the opinion that the status quo is right. But you can't say that it's right just because it's the status quo.
And by the way, aggregate means everything. That's how legislation passes or fails in parliament, the aggregate decision of the members.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
FPTP is fine if you're mostly electing individuals, with their own consciences and the freedom to act on that conscience. We've seen now, with Johnson's ruthless enforcement of party discipline that we do not have such a system. People vote for parties, and they elect representatives of those parties, rather than representatives of their constituency.
Therefore we should use a voting system that is suitable for electing parties rather than individuals. British Proportional Representation is my favourite version, but there are others.
We are electing individuals with a party label, our system manages both. MPs individualism trumps their party label as we have seen in recent years: Johnson could not ruthlessly enforce party discipline, if he stripped an MP of the whip that didn't strip them of their seat they remained in Parliament for the rest of their term as an elected individual.
We also see every week in Parliament people bringing up their own local constituents concerns. Yes there are national issues but there are also issues of local concern that can be brought up to our local MPs. Going to national PR breaks that local link.
British Proportional Representation is the compromise between national PR and FPTP that we need. You could have 3-5 MPs per constituency, so they would still represent a distinct local area. We wouldn't have the abomination of party lists.
None of the MPs who Johnson had prevented from standing as Conservative candidates are likely to win re-election. That's a fairly effective purge of his political opponents, not in keeping with the theoretical principles of FPTP.
If those candidates don't win re-election then that will be the choice of the voters. I respect the voters choice, why don't you?
Or on the other hand, people will see it as 'I want to help my son/daughter' out with X/Y/Z and they've got to pay a chunk of it across to the tax man up front..
Some people will. Others will not see why somebody already comfortable receiving a large sum of unearned income in late middle age should be exempt from tax on it. This is a "values" thing. How you view it will depend on how you answer the following question -
What is the single biggest determinant of material life outcome? (i) Talent and Hard Work. (ii) Luck.
Forget all the rest the above question is IMO the fundamental dividing line between left and right. If you answer (i) you will be right of centre, (ii) you will be on the left.
If people try it, I bet it shows I'm right.
You need any two out of luck, hard work and connections. If you don't have one of them then you need the other two. Brains are bullshit; I've known plenty of geniuses living in penury.
The main drivers fot success are hard work and smart choices. The main negative impact of poverty is a lack of good advice, financial distress and social culture that encourages bad choices.
Overwhelmingly, the main driver for success is having wealthy parents.
A lot of people make the bad choice of having poor parents.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
FPTP is fine if you're mostly electing individuals, with their own consciences and the freedom to act on that conscience. We've seen now, with Johnson's ruthless enforcement of party discipline that we do not have such a system. People vote for parties, and they elect representatives of those parties, rather than representatives of their constituency.
Therefore we should use a voting system that is suitable for electing parties rather than individuals. British Proportional Representation is my favourite version, but there are others.
We are electing individuals with a party label, our system manages both. MPs individualism trumps their party label as we have seen in recent years: Johnson could not ruthlessly enforce party discipline, if he stripped an MP of the whip that didn't strip them of their seat they remained in Parliament for the rest of their term as an elected individual.
We also see every week in Parliament people bringing up their own local constituents concerns. Yes there are national issues but there are also issues of local concern that can be brought up to our local MPs. Going to national PR breaks that local link.
British Proportional Representation is the compromise between national PR and FPTP that we need. You could have 3-5 MPs per constituency, so they would still represent a distinct local area. We wouldn't have the abomination of party lists.
None of the MPs who Johnson had prevented from standing as Conservative candidates are likely to win re-election. That's a fairly effective purge of his political opponents, not in keeping with the theoretical principles of FPTP.
Exactly. People on here moan about "robots" always voting for the same party, but then keenly defend the fiction that it's the member that people vote for when it suits them. You can't have it both ways.
Boris would have been condemned over the floods no matter what course of action he took. The damage would have happened no matter who the PM was, and no matter how quickly action was taken. Unfair. But I accept politics is an unfair business, and the PM is there to be condemned when things go wrong.
Bollocks. The way to prevent a no deal Brexit is for Johnson not to get a majority.
LAB has lost between a quarter and a third of its GE2017 vote because it has stuck with an unelectable leader,
Or you could both accept democracy and accept that we voted to Leave.
Controversial suggestion I'm sure, what am I thinking?
As usual you are not thinking (or reading properly) at all. That is the stupidest thing I have ever read. You are replying to a post seeking to persuade people how to vote to avoid no deal (not avoid Brexit altogether) by saying they should vote to respect the 2016 referendum. You are thus implicitly suggesting that anyone who votes anything but Tory (or presumably TBP) is not accepting democracy. Either that or you are suggesting political parties should base their democratic platforms on a past vote, or they are not respecting democracy. Either way some participant in this election, be they voters or parties, does not accept democracy. Which is it? And how?
Every vote cast is equal. Parties can say whatever they want but every candidate starts with zero votes each election and it takes tens of thousands of votes to win a seat normally. If you can convince a plurality to vote for you then you can take seats away from the other parties - just as the SNP did when they got a clean sweep nearly across Scotland. Almost every single seat in Scotland has changed hands this decade - so much for so-called "safe" seats.
Four million Ukip voters say you're wrong. But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
You'll note I addressed the point in my original reply. But I'll say it again. All votes are equal at a constituency level. At a constituency level, them not winning owt was fair. At an aggregate level the number of votes cast for a particular party do not give a fair result in parliament. You are choosing one fairness over another. That's your prerogative, I'm just bringing it all out into the open so people can see that.
We don't vote aggregate we vote in constituencies. Those constituency MPs then meet up. Aggregate means nothing.
Except for what the population purported to being represented might actually be wanting.
Yes, but some people think we should think about the aggregate vote. You can be of the opinion that the status quo is right. But you can't say that it's right just because it's the status quo.
And by the way, aggregate means everything. That's how legislation passes or fails in parliament, the aggregate decision of the members.
Aggregate is no more democratic than local and breaks the link with having local MP take responsibility for each local area in the country.
Yes aggregate members across the country choose to pass or fail, which means aggregate locations across the country must be saying yes not just an overwhelming majority of one place overwhelming others. There is plenty of evidence that the concerns of the cities are not the concerns of the shires, the concerns of the North are not the concerns of the South, the concerns of the Scots are not the concerns of the English so I don't see why we should break the one-constituency one-MP link.
A Neil reads out Matt Hancocks response to worst ever NHS figures in incredulity.
"These figures show why we need to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Downing Street .... "
Many will agree. Labour barely leads on the NHS.
A Neil thought it was a ridiculous way to respond to the worst NHS numbers in history. Try recruiting some staff to the 150,000 vacancies or resolving the pension tax that's stopping Consultants working extra hours.
Remarkable lack of awareness of how much of the Brexit process remains to be done, and contested.
Certainly not the overall process with regards trade agreements and negotiations but in terms of the broader picture of settling whether we leave or not then yes. People will be able to pick up a paper or switch on the news without hearing about Brexit every day which will please most on both sides!
You must be joking. During Bozo's short "non-extendable" transition period we'll have all the same arguments and at the end quite possibly the same crisis.
I must have missed the seats UKIP won a plurality in that shows me to be wrong. UKIP voters had their votes counted. They lost. That's fair enough.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
FPTP is fine if you're mostly electing individuals, with their own consciences and the freedom to act on that conscience. We've seen now, with Johnson's ruthless enforcement of party discipline that we do not have such a system. People vote for parties, and they elect representatives of those parties, rather than representatives of their constituency.
Therefore we should use a voting system that is suitable for electing parties rather than individuals. British Proportional Representation is my favourite version, but there are others.
We are electing individuals with a party label, our system manages both. MPs individualism trumps their party label as we have seen in recent years: Johnson could not ruthlessly enforce party discipline, if he stripped an MP of the whip that didn't strip them of their seat they remained in Parliament for the rest of their term as an elected individual.
We also see every week in Parliament people bringing up their own local constituents concerns. Yes there are national issues but there are also issues of local concern that can be brought up to our local MPs. Going to national PR breaks that local link.
British Proportional Representation is the compromise between national PR and FPTP that we need. You could have 3-5 MPs per constituency, so they would still represent a distinct local area. We wouldn't have the abomination of party lists.
None of the MPs who Johnson had prevented from standing as Conservative candidates are likely to win re-election. That's a fairly effective purge of his political opponents, not in keeping with the theoretical principles of FPTP.
That's a fudge trying to reverse engineer a solution to suit yourself. So you don't either have one MP taking responsibility for a local constituency, nor do you look at the aggregate votes. No thanks.
A Neil reads out Matt Hancocks response to worst ever NHS figures in incredulity.
"These figures show why we need to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Downing Street .... "
Many will agree. Labour barely leads on the NHS.
A Neil thought it was a ridiculous way to respond to the worst NHS numbers in history. Try recruiting some staff to the 150,000 vacancies or resolving the pension tax that's stopping Consultants working extra hours.
Comments
...So far, a succession of PPC's for various seats speaking, so presumably Nigel's big announcement is not "we're not standing anywhere" ?
https://twitter.com/wavefmnews/status/1194922168766861313?s=20
I mean, its possible, but what evidence is there for this? Is it not more likely that the changes in odds simply reflect the desire of the market maker to balance his books?
I am genuinely asking this and would be interested in any views. I got interested in PB principally on this theory, that the bettiing markets were being shaped by those with better info than the general public. The evidence for this over the last 10 years has been, well, slight. The chat, the humour and of course learning how to properly drink a cappuccino, has got me to hang around but the markets have been an unreliable guide.
Maybe because whilst I come from the affluent suburbs of St Albans, there has been a noticeable increase in rough sleeping in our city over the last 10 years, there has been a noticeable reduction in public services and a noticeable increase in council tax despite this reduction in public services, and even affluent Tories I know think this is going a bit too far.
Maybe because whilst I live in a country where the UN is saying that the way the state deals with disabled people has literally killed thousands of people, Richard Branson can live in a tax haven and make a load of money and buy up assets built by the state for the common good instead of doing anything particularly useful.
Maybe I think people here talking inheritance tax limits of £125k will affect the average person is super out of touch when the average inheritance amount people get is closer to £11k, so this is really still an issue for the really well off.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48213333
If you're talking about the railways - they were originally built by private money and enterprise before being stolen by the State.
What is the single biggest determinant of material life outcome? (i) Talent and Hard Work. (ii) Luck.
Forget all the rest the above question is IMO the fundamental dividing line between left and right. If you answer (i) you will be right of centre, (ii) you will be on the left.
If people try it, I bet it shows I'm right.
Have you not seen Boris on Tour that's what you call torrid. Floods of abuse.
Rather than whining about the voting system how about trying to win a plurality of the votes instead?
It's true that in the C19th there was a lot of private investment in railways. But a lot changed in the 100-150 years between the beginning and the privatisation in the 90s.
One of the 50 cent crew told me so just yesterday.
After that, it's a mix of i) and ii)
Huh?
I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would imagine that of the 650 constituency markets priced up in 2017, over 90% were won by the FAV.
We remember the stunning exceptions, but if the FAV didn’t usually win, the bookies would soon be out of business
I don’t consider 90% accuracy to be “slight”.
*Checks Scottish polls, checks Dundee results*
Bit optimistic isn't it ?
Brexit, especially hard Brexit, which may or may not happen, is a leap into the unknown. Many forecasts suggest a decline relative to the alternative case where the UK remains, though not necessarily an absolute decline. It is certainly an option with considerable uncertainty. Whereas the brand of economics and politics that Jeremy Corbyn appears to favour has resulted in a significant and often disastrous absolute decline in living standards everywhere it has been tried.
Economically, your offer is one of trying to encourage people to reject a leap into the dark unknown by giving them the comforting certainty of a pit of venomous snakes to leap into.
Seriously though, does luck include who your parents are? If so, single biggest determinant (obviously if they are rich, but also what they put into you, even if not. My parents were relatively poor, but their outlook, intelligence - they don't consider themselves intelligent and left education at 14/15, but they are - and putting their children first gave me the motivation and opportunities to be relatively well off). From birth onwards, talent and hard work are more important than luck, I think, although luck also matters. But if you're born in the right circumstances it's very hard to really suffer materially and if you're born in the wrong circumstances you have to be really quite special to succeed.
But in all seriousness, you're half right. All votes are equal at a constituency level, but they become very unequal at a national level. You can argue for either being fairer, but you who believe in constituencies as a fundamental unit do have to keep to that when you talk about national politics. Anyone who thinks like you do has no place complaining about individual MPs "respecting" a national vote.
Stance 2 - That means there are lots of people who will be sure that this is bringing it to a conclusion who will be very pissed off if we go through 2020 with saga plot elements like "will we extend the transition period?" "Will we end up on No Deal terms?" "Will we have to accept huge swathes of EU legislation?" and then into 2021. What could possibly go wrong?
Don't know which stance will be more accurate, to be honest.
I imagine that could distort things since lets say a grandparent on average leaves a chunk to their children then a smaller chunk to each grandchild and then even smaller chunks to other people the median bequeath would a smaller chunk left to a grandchild. Unless someone leaves everything to somebody the median bequeath would exclude the primary people chosen to inherit most of the inheritance and would look at the smaller ones.
One of those instances where you can truly distort things by using median or mean.
Possible that household wealth doesn't convert to inherited wealth if people spend it before they die / take money out of the house for refurbs to help getting older. Also possible that many people spread their inheritance around; I'm one of 7 grandchildren (1 great grandchild) on one side, one of 3 on the other.
If he makes another "gaffe" like that, then I'll be sure he doesn't actually want to be PM.
Yes, Corbyn is disagreeing with this man, but he at least seems willing to say something. As it goes on he gives out applause lines for supporters; Johnson can't even manage those in similar scenarios. Maybe it comes across better because Corbyn has a "friendly" audience whereas Johnson doesn't, but I see that encounter as better for Corbyn than the ones Johnson had yesterday.
If a football team loses a match 2 - 1 then they got a third of the goals scored so are they entitled to one point in your world or does the winning team get all 3 points? Liverpool have won 4 games so far this Premier League season on a 2-1 scoreline and won all 12 possible points from those games - should we dock them 3 points because the losers got a goal?
As far as the national referendum was concerned we were part of one constituency called the United Kingdom for that referendum, but even if you look at local constituencies Leave won still.
That's politics
It may be partly the effect of a December election but if in a week's time there is no sign of the 2017 Corbyn campaign magic then Labour will really begin to panic.
To go back to your original post what has happened in Bracon and Radnorshire?
This one is someone heckling Corbyn who tries to shut him up and say that he can ask a question later.
Yesterday we had videos of people speaking to Johnson and Johnson listening sympathetically then replying.
Somehow I think if Johnson had acted like Corbyn and said basically "shut up, I'm talking now, listen to me and you can talk later" that would not have gone down well!
Therefore we should use a voting system that is suitable for electing parties rather than individuals. British Proportional Representation is my favourite version, but there are others.
Corbyn's issue is that he very rarely, if at all, addresses audiences which are not the usual rent-a-mob devout supporters. He's always preaching to his choir.
May didn't address anyone. Boris is putting himself out there but he inevitably attracts the heckles as he is, well, PM. But he does need to do better.
John Major was excellent. Everyone poo-pooed his "soap box" in 1992, but I doubt there would be any politician now who would dare to do that now - far too much scope for things to go wrong and be on Twatter 30 seconds later.
Stick both of them on soapboxes in the middle of a random High Street (not in their heartlands) on a Saturday afternoon and see how they get on. It wouldn't be pretty for either I think.
You are choosing one fairness over another. That's your prerogative, I'm just bringing it all out into the open so people can see that.
Never trust the Tories with the NHS
https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1194605315209277440
If I say I only had hard work (no connections, no luck) but still I was successful, you say I must have been lucky then.
We also see every week in Parliament people bringing up their own local constituents concerns. Yes there are national issues but there are also issues of local concern that can be brought up to our local MPs. Going to national PR breaks that local link.
A lot of people make the bad choice of having poor parents.
I'd like my parents to blow it all via equity release or similar, take lots of holidays, buy a new car, spend some money on the house to modernise it a bit and enjoy it. If they need care as they age I'd like them to be able to pay for whatever is needed through the equity in the house (better still that state services were very good and they get to spend the money on other stuff).
If there's anything left, I don't see how I could possibly feel hard done by to pay at least my normal rate of income tax on the *whole* inheritance. I'd consider myself positively greedy if I complained about getting taxed on anything over £125k.
Much of what's routinely attributed to talent or hard work is due to sheer luck in who one meets, who one knows... or who daddy knows. The ups and downs in my own life reflect these influences, including applied randomness.
But hopefully on a betting website most people do understand randomness ...
None of the MPs who Johnson had prevented from standing as Conservative candidates are likely to win re-election. That's a fairly effective purge of his political opponents, not in keeping with the theoretical principles of FPTP.
And by the way, aggregate means everything. That's how legislation passes or fails in parliament, the aggregate decision of the members.
Not a good look.
A Neil reads out Matt Hancocks response to worst ever NHS figures in incredulity.
"These figures show why we need to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Downing Street .... "
I'm sure someone will be along soon to tell me why it is actually a nailed on SCon gain.
Yes aggregate members across the country choose to pass or fail, which means aggregate locations across the country must be saying yes not just an overwhelming majority of one place overwhelming others. There is plenty of evidence that the concerns of the cities are not the concerns of the shires, the concerns of the North are not the concerns of the South, the concerns of the Scots are not the concerns of the English so I don't see why we should break the one-constituency one-MP link.
Recent polls on the NHS - Boris 40% Corbyn 34% and latest Boris and Corbyn both on 27%