The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Not sure why safe seats are barely democratic ? I would have thought the opposite . I would argue a representative from a seat with a 10K majority has more of a mandate from that area than one from an area with a 1K majority
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Whether true or not the safe seats argument is irrelevant. FPTP delivers the opportunity to kick a government out, meaning that all governments of any colour have to consider the interests of voters in a massive range of areas social and geographic. Safe seats are safe because voters make them so. As Dennis Skinner knows they can unmake them. (Liverpool and Glasgow once had lots of Tory seats.) That's what democracy is. It's a feature not a bug.
My conversations with people inside government suggest that many ministers appreciate that [vaccination] gloating is unedifying and self-defeating. At the same time, a Brexiter cabinet finds it hard to resist the temptation to exploit the EU’s distress for partisan advantage. The NHS-delivered distribution of the vaccine is the only aspect of the handling of the crisis in which this government can claim to have a record that is impressive. Brexiters want to claim that success, however bogusly, as a justification for their experiment. There are also Tories who believe that a steady drumbeat of cross-Channel conflict serves their electoral interests by keeping the Brexit vote aroused and distracted from the punishing damage the rupture is inflicting on the economy.
A government with an enlightened perspective on the long-term interests of Britain would see value in offering expressions of sympathy and gestures of solidarity with the EU at its time of severe trial. That could generate a lot of goodwill among European voters and leaders. It might be the more effective in winning friends for Britain for being so unexpected from a Brexiter government. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, instead prefers to play tit for tat.
There is a problem with this attempt by ministers to seize the title deeds to the moral high ground. Their behaviour has robbed them of any claims on it. No one is worse qualified to lecture others about contract-breaking than a member of Mr Johnson’s government.
The chances of avoiding a mutually destructive struggle with the EU over vaccine supplies would be much better had Britain a prime minister who was regarded as a trustworthy international partner by his peer group. An escalation into a full-blown “vaccine war” between Britain and the EU would be a disaster for both on many levels.
Vaccine nationalism is already a dimension of this crisis. It would set a terrible example to the world if countries that advertise themselves as mature, sophisticated and internationalist democracies were to unleash a vaccine war in Europe. Britain and her near neighbours are going to have to live and work with each other long after Covid-19 has become history. The UK’s security and prosperity still depend in great part on what happens within the EU. It cannot be in the EU’s interests to have permanently toxified relations with such a substantial country on its border. A vaccine war would be a conflict without a winner, only many losers.
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Did you miss the recent survey with all those happy Scandinavian countries coming top in it?
Correlation does not equal causation.
That'd be like me saying they all drink themselves to death or top themselves due to their depression over their voting system, whereas in fact it's because they have no sun for months over the Winter and terrible weather.
The BBC are reporting that Mandelson is urging Starmer to have a policy review. It definitely makes sense to do so, but I wonder when Starmer will risk it. Quite odd that he's not done so in his first year.
Given that few if any have any idea of what Labour's policies are bar opposing or not opposing.. a review that dredged up some policies that might appeal to the electorate seems to be a sound idea.
I would have thought he has been waiting to see what the political and economic landscape is like after the pandemic has run its course.
No sense in coming up with policies that will have to be junked immediately because of a crisis. That was one mistake Cameron made (‘share the proceeds of growth’).
Albeit it has left him looking like a bit of a vacuum recently.
On the census, the Ministry of Defence is telling its people not to answer some questions in case foreign spies have infiltrated the government.
... the Ministry of Defence has taken a curious line against the census, urging defence personnel and contractors to give incomplete answers to four questions –- and to ignore one altogether.
An Industry Security Notice issued on 15 March and aimed at defence contractors urges them not to give full and complete answers to questions 41-42, 44, and 50. When filling in 41 ("What is (was) the name of the organisation or business you work (worked) for?") contractors should not "give details about the place where you work", according to the MoD.
Job titles* should simply become "MoD contractor", while question 43, which asks what you do in your main job, "should not be answered" at all in the ministry's view. Even the location of one's workplace shouldn't be revealed in the census, with the MoD urging people to give only the postcode. https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/19/ministry_defence_tells_staff_dont_answer_census/
Let's hope those pesky Russian tourists don't know the postcodes of Britain's cathedrals and naval bases.
Couldnt they just play tennis with the PM for another £100k and ask him directly?
We know the KGB attempted to recruit one recent Prime Minister and was suspected by MI5 of controlling another. This one's brazenly called Boris so they're not even trying to hide it!
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Nonsense. I picked two of the very safest (quite deliberately) because they were both held by former sitting Prime Ministers of different parties leading landslide governments.
Hundreds of seats have changed in England over the last 20 years, and almost all of them in Scotland.
The BBC are reporting that Mandelson is urging Starmer to have a policy review. It definitely makes sense to do so, but I wonder when Starmer will risk it. Quite odd that he's not done so in his first year.
I was arguing that on here a few weeks ago. One of SKS's major problems is that he does not seem to have a clear vision of what kind of country he wants. He comes across as someone who just wants to be more competent than Boris but still in broadly the same direction. Given the quality of his shadow cabinet this may not be a winning argument.
He needs to set the conversation in the way that Attlee did. What does build back better after Covid mean? Better in what way? What can the State do better and how? What should it maybe back away from? The old saying about being better to be talked about than not applies. At the moment he just looks boring.
Dare I say it but its something that lawyers can be prone to. We get so used to arguing someone else's case we lose a bit of definition on our own.
My conversations with people inside government suggest that many ministers appreciate that [vaccination] gloating is unedifying and self-defeating. At the same time, a Brexiter cabinet finds it hard to resist the temptation to exploit the EU’s distress for partisan advantage. The NHS-delivered distribution of the vaccine is the only aspect of the handling of the crisis in which this government can claim to have a record that is impressive. Brexiters want to claim that success, however bogusly, as a justification for their experiment. There are also Tories who believe that a steady drumbeat of cross-Channel conflict serves their electoral interests by keeping the Brexit vote aroused and distracted from the punishing damage the rupture is inflicting on the economy.
A government with an enlightened perspective on the long-term interests of Britain would see value in offering expressions of sympathy and gestures of solidarity with the EU at its time of severe trial. That could generate a lot of goodwill among European voters and leaders. It might be the more effective in winning friends for Britain for being so unexpected from a Brexiter government. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, instead prefers to play tit for tat.
There is a problem with this attempt by ministers to seize the title deeds to the moral high ground. Their behaviour has robbed them of any claims on it. No one is worse qualified to lecture others about contract-breaking than a member of Mr Johnson’s government.
The chances of avoiding a mutually destructive struggle with the EU over vaccine supplies would be much better had Britain a prime minister who was regarded as a trustworthy international partner by his peer group. An escalation into a full-blown “vaccine war” between Britain and the EU would be a disaster for both on many levels.
Vaccine nationalism is already a dimension of this crisis. It would set a terrible example to the world if countries that advertise themselves as mature, sophisticated and internationalist democracies were to unleash a vaccine war in Europe. Britain and her near neighbours are going to have to live and work with each other long after Covid-19 has become history. The UK’s security and prosperity still depend in great part on what happens within the EU. It cannot be in the EU’s interests to have permanently toxified relations with such a substantial country on its border. A vaccine war would be a conflict without a winner, only many losers.
The government has done nothing of the sort. This is an exercise of trying to justify the idiotic position of the EU and falsely accusing the UK government of vaccine nationalism.
Rawnsley has started with his conclusion of "must be the fault of brexit supporters" and then fit the narrative to it and made up "evidence" based on his feelings about the subject to get there. It's a load of old rubbish dressed up as insight.
Anyway assuming that the UK and the world does not carry on being overly obsessed with covid -19 beyond a few months my daughter will be reaching university age soon and is interested and good at "behind the scenes " performing arts (ie film/TV /social media (she has 60K followers on Tik Tok apparently!) production and likes theatre as well. Does anyone know the best universities for this kind of thing . Not to academic but more practical in those areas?
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Whether true or not the safe seats argument is irrelevant. FPTP delivers the opportunity to kick a government out, meaning that all governments of any colour have to consider the interests of voters in a massive range of areas social and geographic. Safe seats are safe because voters make them so. As Dennis Skinner knows they can unmake them. (Liverpool and Glasgow once had lots of Tory seats.) That's what democracy is. It's a feature not a bug.
The other way of looking at it, however, is that they *only* consider the views of that particular area. Every policy is geared towards appealing to swing voters in particular seat. Tony Blair was a master of it, as was Thatcher. But Osborne’s £1 million IHT pledge was a similar thing.
Basically, if you can tickle the fancy of 43% of voters and make sure the other 57% are split between at least two, preferably three other parties, you will be OK.
So that 57% is more or less shut out, or, frequently, attacked to shore up support among the 43%.
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Not sure what is wrong with having safe seats anyway. By definition they are places where the population is satisfied with their MP and the party they represent. Is that a bad thing.Surely its a good thing? As a punter it narrows the seats worth punting on for sure but that is a side issue
Having representatives who face no electoral challenge or pressure is as bad a thing as having a government in the same position. It's only the prospect of losing an election that keeps our politicians honest and - as the expenses scandal clearly showed - when there isn't that pressure the 'jobs for life' aspect of a safe seat leads very quickly to hubris and corruption.
Anyway assuming that the UK and the world does not carry on being overly obsessed with covid -19 beyond a few months my daughter will be reaching university age soon and is interested and good at "behind the scenes " performing arts (ie film/TV /social media (she has 60K followers on Tik Tok apparently!) production and likes theatre as well. Does anyone know the best universities for this kind of thing . Not to academic but more practical in those areas?
The Tory membership vote is conducted by FPTP as there are only 2 candidates.
The Tory MPs vote is not conducted by AV but more something closer to the French second ballot system, except of with multiple rounds rather than just two
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Not sure why safe seats are barely democratic ? I would have thought the opposite . I would argue a representative from a seat with a 10K majority has more of a mandate from that area than one from an area with a 1K majority
They are barely democratic because the incentive to vote is lost. If the result is foregone what's the point? Also, as we have seen all too painfully in Scotland recently, if you have an administration that is dominated by one party for too long that impacts on the impartiality of the Civil Service and other institutions. To get ahead you need to be seen to be toing the party line.
My conversations with people inside government suggest that many ministers appreciate that [vaccination] gloating is unedifying and self-defeating. At the same time, a Brexiter cabinet finds it hard to resist the temptation to exploit the EU’s distress for partisan advantage. The NHS-delivered distribution of the vaccine is the only aspect of the handling of the crisis in which this government can claim to have a record that is impressive. Brexiters want to claim that success, however bogusly, as a justification for their experiment. There are also Tories who believe that a steady drumbeat of cross-Channel conflict serves their electoral interests by keeping the Brexit vote aroused and distracted from the punishing damage the rupture is inflicting on the economy.
A government with an enlightened perspective on the long-term interests of Britain would see value in offering expressions of sympathy and gestures of solidarity with the EU at its time of severe trial. That could generate a lot of goodwill among European voters and leaders. It might be the more effective in winning friends for Britain for being so unexpected from a Brexiter government. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, instead prefers to play tit for tat.
There is a problem with this attempt by ministers to seize the title deeds to the moral high ground. Their behaviour has robbed them of any claims on it. No one is worse qualified to lecture others about contract-breaking than a member of Mr Johnson’s government.
The chances of avoiding a mutually destructive struggle with the EU over vaccine supplies would be much better had Britain a prime minister who was regarded as a trustworthy international partner by his peer group. An escalation into a full-blown “vaccine war” between Britain and the EU would be a disaster for both on many levels.
Vaccine nationalism is already a dimension of this crisis. It would set a terrible example to the world if countries that advertise themselves as mature, sophisticated and internationalist democracies were to unleash a vaccine war in Europe. Britain and her near neighbours are going to have to live and work with each other long after Covid-19 has become history. The UK’s security and prosperity still depend in great part on what happens within the EU. It cannot be in the EU’s interests to have permanently toxified relations with such a substantial country on its border. A vaccine war would be a conflict without a winner, only many losers.
"A government with an enlightened perspective on the long-term interests of Britain would see value in offering expressions of sympathy and gestures of solidarity with the EU at its time of severe trial. "
Would be a bit easier to take that "enlightened perspective" if the EU hadn't been cheapskates, didn't make their pro rata contributions to vaccine development, rubbed our noses in it that we had overpaid, dicked around for months for their own internal power-mechanistic reasons before entering contracts, then claimed we had colluded to rob them of their vaccines, put a hard border across the island of Ireland, then rubbished the vaccines.
In short, behaved like c***s throughout. Pandering to them "would set a terrible example to the world".
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Well, 187 have changed hands at least once since 2010. And Scotland shows that in reality, no seat is safe.
So despite the country swinging significantly 70% of seats have not changed and those 100yr incumbencies look safer than ever. I hope you’re right, but I don’t buy it for a second.
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Whether true or not the safe seats argument is irrelevant. FPTP delivers the opportunity to kick a government out, meaning that all governments of any colour have to consider the interests of voters in a massive range of areas social and geographic. Safe seats are safe because voters make them so. As Dennis Skinner knows they can unmake them. (Liverpool and Glasgow once had lots of Tory seats.) That's what democracy is. It's a feature not a bug.
The other way of looking at it, however, is that they *only* consider the views of that particular area. Every policy is geared towards appealing to swing voters in particular seat. Tony Blair was a master of it, as was Thatcher. But Osborne’s £1 million IHT pledge was a similar thing.
Basically, if you can tickle the fancy of 43% of voters and make sure the other 57% are split between at least two, preferably three other parties, you will be OK.
So that 57% is more or less shut out, or, frequently, attacked to shore up support among the 43%.
For sure, swing voters have a lot of power. But I always find it an odd argument, because its often (though, not in your case, I think) made by people who wouldn't countenance voting for the other lot.
My conversations with people inside government suggest that many ministers appreciate that [vaccination] gloating is unedifying and self-defeating. At the same time, a Brexiter cabinet finds it hard to resist the temptation to exploit the EU’s distress for partisan advantage. The NHS-delivered distribution of the vaccine is the only aspect of the handling of the crisis in which this government can claim to have a record that is impressive. Brexiters want to claim that success, however bogusly, as a justification for their experiment. There are also Tories who believe that a steady drumbeat of cross-Channel conflict serves their electoral interests by keeping the Brexit vote aroused and distracted from the punishing damage the rupture is inflicting on the economy.
A government with an enlightened perspective on the long-term interests of Britain would see value in offering expressions of sympathy and gestures of solidarity with the EU at its time of severe trial. That could generate a lot of goodwill among European voters and leaders. It might be the more effective in winning friends for Britain for being so unexpected from a Brexiter government. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, instead prefers to play tit for tat.
There is a problem with this attempt by ministers to seize the title deeds to the moral high ground. Their behaviour has robbed them of any claims on it. No one is worse qualified to lecture others about contract-breaking than a member of Mr Johnson’s government.
The chances of avoiding a mutually destructive struggle with the EU over vaccine supplies would be much better had Britain a prime minister who was regarded as a trustworthy international partner by his peer group. An escalation into a full-blown “vaccine war” between Britain and the EU would be a disaster for both on many levels.
Vaccine nationalism is already a dimension of this crisis. It would set a terrible example to the world if countries that advertise themselves as mature, sophisticated and internationalist democracies were to unleash a vaccine war in Europe. Britain and her near neighbours are going to have to live and work with each other long after Covid-19 has become history. The UK’s security and prosperity still depend in great part on what happens within the EU. It cannot be in the EU’s interests to have permanently toxified relations with such a substantial country on its border. A vaccine war would be a conflict without a winner, only many losers.
The government has done nothing of the sort. This is an exercise of trying to justify the idiotic position of the EU and falsely accusing the UK government of vaccine nationalism.
Rawnsley has started with his conclusion of "must be the fault of brexit supporters" and then fit the narrative to it and made up "evidence" based on his feelings about the subject to get there. It's a load of old rubbish dressed up as insight.
Yes, whoever is guilty of vaccine nationalism and bad faith, it isn’t us.
To some extent, we did cause the current problem, but it is unfair to blame a government for having been competent and effective and having made their neighbours look like such a bunch of drunken idiots that they flail and flounder in response.
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Not sure what is wrong with having safe seats anyway. By definition they are places where the population is satisfied with their MP and the party they represent. Is that a bad thing.Surely its a good thing? As a punter it narrows the seats worth punting on for sure but that is a side issue
Having representatives who face no electoral challenge or pressure is as bad a thing as having a government in the same position. It's only the prospect of losing an election that keeps our politicians honest and - as the expenses scandal clearly showed - when there isn't that pressure the 'jobs for life' aspect of a safe seat leads very quickly to hubris and corruption.
but they do have an electoral challenge in votes just like any other seat. Its just that the overall population is fine with the status quo . Democracy is not about constant change necessarily , its about what people want and if that is the status quo for years on end well thats fine isn't it?
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Well, 187 have changed hands at least once since 2010. And Scotland shows that in reality, no seat is safe.
So 463 seats have not changed hands then since 2010.
Scotland was an exception because it saw a centre left nationalist party, the SNP, overtake the centre left Labour Party so was more a realignment of the dominant centre left in Scotland
The Tory membership vote is conducted by FPTP as there are only 2 candidates.
The Tory MPs vote is not conducted by AV but more something closer to the French second ballot system, except of with multiple rounds rather than just two
All very well, until everybody else withdraws their candidacy and you are left by default with Theresa May.....
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Well, 187 have changed hands at least once since 2010. And Scotland shows that in reality, no seat is safe.
So despite the country swinging significantly 70% of seats have not changed and those 100yr incumbencies look safer than ever. I hope you’re right, but I don’t buy it for a second.
You do know that there are plenty of safe seats in PR systems?
Anyway assuming that the UK and the world does not carry on being overly obsessed with covid -19 beyond a few months my daughter will be reaching university age soon and is interested and good at "behind the scenes " performing arts (ie film/TV /social media (she has 60K followers on Tik Tok apparently!) production and likes theatre as well. Does anyone know the best universities for this kind of thing . Not to academic but more practical in those areas?
As Max said, RADA is good, but this comes highly recommended from several friends of mine who went there:
The UK has done nothing wrong. Indeed, the government has been unusually competent on the vaccine front. Even our idiotic PM did well not to react serious provocations and threats from the EU in the past. Now they're wibbling again (having decided AZN vaccine isn't poisonous, or should be banned, but should be used) about an export ban. Which is illegal and wretched, and create perhaps irresistible pressure in the UK for a retaliatory measure, leading to more dead Britons and EU citizens.
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Not sure what is wrong with having safe seats anyway. By definition they are places where the population is satisfied with their MP and the party they represent. Is that a bad thing.Surely its a good thing? As a punter it narrows the seats worth punting on for sure but that is a side issue
Having representatives who face no electoral challenge or pressure is as bad a thing as having a government in the same position. It's only the prospect of losing an election that keeps our politicians honest and - as the expenses scandal clearly showed - when there isn't that pressure the 'jobs for life' aspect of a safe seat leads very quickly to hubris and corruption.
but they do have an electoral challenge in votes just like any other seat. Its just that the overall population is fine with the status quo . Democracy is not about constant change necessarily , its about what people want and if that is the status quo for years on end well thats fine isn't it?
FPTP encourages people to not vote for what they "want" but rather against what they "least want". That for me is enough to dislike it.
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Whether true or not the safe seats argument is irrelevant. FPTP delivers the opportunity to kick a government out, meaning that all governments of any colour have to consider the interests of voters in a massive range of areas social and geographic. Safe seats are safe because voters make them so. As Dennis Skinner knows they can unmake them. (Liverpool and Glasgow once had lots of Tory seats.) That's what democracy is. It's a feature not a bug.
The other way of looking at it, however, is that they *only* consider the views of that particular area. Every policy is geared towards appealing to swing voters in particular seat. Tony Blair was a master of it, as was Thatcher. But Osborne’s £1 million IHT pledge was a similar thing.
Basically, if you can tickle the fancy of 43% of voters and make sure the other 57% are split between at least two, preferably three other parties, you will be OK.
So that 57% is more or less shut out, or, frequently, attacked to shore up support among the 43%.
For sure, swing voters have a lot of power. But I always find it an odd argument, because its often (though, not in your case, I think) made by people who wouldn't countenance voting for the other lot.
I get deeply cynical when I see the multiple attempts made to bribe, er, persuade me to vote for whichever party.
Anyway assuming that the UK and the world does not carry on being overly obsessed with covid -19 beyond a few months my daughter will be reaching university age soon and is interested and good at "behind the scenes " performing arts (ie film/TV /social media (she has 60K followers on Tik Tok apparently!) production and likes theatre as well. Does anyone know the best universities for this kind of thing . Not to academic but more practical in those areas?
RADA is the global leader.
thanks Max - is that for behind the camera studies as well as in front of the camera stuff as well? She does perform but her interest is in production more
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
If its about political satisfaction most democratic countries do better than us.
Inflated majorities under FPTP were bad for Blair, they are bad now. It’s not a party problem. They give the administration no incentive to look beyond the 30% of the electorate that have them power and also gives them an inflated sense of their own popularity that ultimately undermines them.
My conversations with people inside government suggest that many ministers appreciate that [vaccination] gloating is unedifying and self-defeating. At the same time, a Brexiter cabinet finds it hard to resist the temptation to exploit the EU’s distress for partisan advantage. The NHS-delivered distribution of the vaccine is the only aspect of the handling of the crisis in which this government can claim to have a record that is impressive. Brexiters want to claim that success, however bogusly, as a justification for their experiment. There are also Tories who believe that a steady drumbeat of cross-Channel conflict serves their electoral interests by keeping the Brexit vote aroused and distracted from the punishing damage the rupture is inflicting on the economy.
A government with an enlightened perspective on the long-term interests of Britain would see value in offering expressions of sympathy and gestures of solidarity with the EU at its time of severe trial. That could generate a lot of goodwill among European voters and leaders. It might be the more effective in winning friends for Britain for being so unexpected from a Brexiter government. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, instead prefers to play tit for tat.
There is a problem with this attempt by ministers to seize the title deeds to the moral high ground. Their behaviour has robbed them of any claims on it. No one is worse qualified to lecture others about contract-breaking than a member of Mr Johnson’s government.
The chances of avoiding a mutually destructive struggle with the EU over vaccine supplies would be much better had Britain a prime minister who was regarded as a trustworthy international partner by his peer group. An escalation into a full-blown “vaccine war” between Britain and the EU would be a disaster for both on many levels.
Vaccine nationalism is already a dimension of this crisis. It would set a terrible example to the world if countries that advertise themselves as mature, sophisticated and internationalist democracies were to unleash a vaccine war in Europe. Britain and her near neighbours are going to have to live and work with each other long after Covid-19 has become history. The UK’s security and prosperity still depend in great part on what happens within the EU. It cannot be in the EU’s interests to have permanently toxified relations with such a substantial country on its border. A vaccine war would be a conflict without a winner, only many losers.
The government has done nothing of the sort. This is an exercise of trying to justify the idiotic position of the EU and falsely accusing the UK government of vaccine nationalism.
Rawnsley has started with his conclusion of "must be the fault of brexit supporters" and then fit the narrative to it and made up "evidence" based on his feelings about the subject to get there. It's a load of old rubbish dressed up as insight.
I think that the government has been remarkably restrained in its responses to the antics of the EU. The furthest I can recall them going was our FS saying that he couldn't believe that they were having this conversation (about the EU threats to prevent contractually purchased vaccines being delivered).
They have been right to do so. The temptation of laughing at UvdL and her cohorts must be resisted. It's not funny. People are dying unnecessarily as a result.
Quiz time. The current GE boundaries have been used for the last four elections. How many of the 632 seats in England and Wales have changed hands at least once since 2010 (excluding speaker changes)?
163?
That's a pretty good guess. The answer is 187 or 29.5% of seats.
To be honest, my top of the head guess was 143, but added 20 as you wouldnt be asking the question if it was a number close to expectations.
My conversations with people inside government suggest that many ministers appreciate that [vaccination] gloating is unedifying and self-defeating. At the same time, a Brexiter cabinet finds it hard to resist the temptation to exploit the EU’s distress for partisan advantage. The NHS-delivered distribution of the vaccine is the only aspect of the handling of the crisis in which this government can claim to have a record that is impressive. Brexiters want to claim that success, however bogusly, as a justification for their experiment. There are also Tories who believe that a steady drumbeat of cross-Channel conflict serves their electoral interests by keeping the Brexit vote aroused and distracted from the punishing damage the rupture is inflicting on the economy.
A government with an enlightened perspective on the long-term interests of Britain would see value in offering expressions of sympathy and gestures of solidarity with the EU at its time of severe trial. That could generate a lot of goodwill among European voters and leaders. It might be the more effective in winning friends for Britain for being so unexpected from a Brexiter government. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, instead prefers to play tit for tat.
There is a problem with this attempt by ministers to seize the title deeds to the moral high ground. Their behaviour has robbed them of any claims on it. No one is worse qualified to lecture others about contract-breaking than a member of Mr Johnson’s government.
The chances of avoiding a mutually destructive struggle with the EU over vaccine supplies would be much better had Britain a prime minister who was regarded as a trustworthy international partner by his peer group. An escalation into a full-blown “vaccine war” between Britain and the EU would be a disaster for both on many levels.
Vaccine nationalism is already a dimension of this crisis. It would set a terrible example to the world if countries that advertise themselves as mature, sophisticated and internationalist democracies were to unleash a vaccine war in Europe. Britain and her near neighbours are going to have to live and work with each other long after Covid-19 has become history. The UK’s security and prosperity still depend in great part on what happens within the EU. It cannot be in the EU’s interests to have permanently toxified relations with such a substantial country on its border. A vaccine war would be a conflict without a winner, only many losers.
Hmm, I think this is especially naive of Rawnsley. He sounds like an abused spouse - "it's actually my fault he lashed out", "if I do what he says he won't hurt me", "I can't do anything without him".
Ultimately the EU decided it would pursue a different strategy to the UK, one that put cost before securing vaccines in a timely manner. The UK directly invested in developing the AZ vaccine and paid a premium to get the first vaccines produced. Upon seeing that the UK's strategy had worked better, the EU began a fairly hostile campaign to undermine public confidence in the AZ vaccine and block exports by AZ to other countries, almost certainlyly meaning the pandemic will now continue for longer and kill more people. This isn't the behaviour of a "mature, sophisticated and internationalist" foreign power interested in "enlightened long term interests".
If the UK Government were to decide, after the EU's hostility, to disregard the contracts it signed at significant cost to the UK taxpayer, and simply hand over the vaccines we paid for to the EU, we wouldn't be sending an "expression of sympathy and gesture of solidarity". It would just be a clear message to the EU that, the next time there is some dispute where the UK is performing better than the EU due to the EU's policy decisions, they can run a hostile campaign against the UK to distract from their own failings and eventually the UK will give in and screw its own citizens over to prop the EU up.
Anyway assuming that the UK and the world does not carry on being overly obsessed with covid -19 beyond a few months my daughter will be reaching university age soon and is interested and good at "behind the scenes " performing arts (ie film/TV /social media (she has 60K followers on Tik Tok apparently!) production and likes theatre as well. Does anyone know the best universities for this kind of thing . Not to academic but more practical in those areas?
As Max said, RADA is good, but this comes highly recommended from several friends of mine who went there:
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted on policy Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Sedgefield being lost to the Tories and Finchley to Labour (both inside 25 years) shows there are no such things as safe seats and the electoral landscape can, and does, radically change. Everyone starts on zero at each and every election.
I'm unconvinced by alternative voting systems because no-one's ever demonstrated to me that countries that have them are any more satisfied with their politics than we are.
Next.
Most seats are safe. Calling out 2 out of 650 doesn’t change that. In a very good year about 100 can change hands. That leaves about 500 that don’t change hands. Meanwhile many seats have had the same party for over one hundred years. Nothing changes. I may be naive but in so far as any thing is safe in life, they seem pretty safe to me.
Whether true or not the safe seats argument is irrelevant. FPTP delivers the opportunity to kick a government out, meaning that all governments of any colour have to consider the interests of voters in a massive range of areas social and geographic. Safe seats are safe because voters make them so. As Dennis Skinner knows they can unmake them. (Liverpool and Glasgow once had lots of Tory seats.) That's what democracy is. It's a feature not a bug.
The other way of looking at it, however, is that they *only* consider the views of that particular area. Every policy is geared towards appealing to swing voters in particular seat. Tony Blair was a master of it, as was Thatcher. But Osborne’s £1 million IHT pledge was a similar thing.
Basically, if you can tickle the fancy of 43% of voters and make sure the other 57% are split between at least two, preferably three other parties, you will be OK.
So that 57% is more or less shut out, or, frequently, attacked to shore up support among the 43%.
Of course that happens a bit, but it is not true for example that the hundreds of billions redistributed by government in pensions and benefits goes under one set of rules to Liverpool and another set of rules to Sussex, or that schools funding has party based funding rules. Yes there is pork barrel politics, but all politics has to be run on the basis that shortly the other party is going to be at the controls. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to prevent us being a tyranny.
It's also true that in the system (Labour need to remember this) you need the attract the votes of people who vote currently the other way, so it's good to keep them onside.
The BBC are reporting that Mandelson is urging Starmer to have a policy review. It definitely makes sense to do so, but I wonder when Starmer will risk it. Quite odd that he's not done so in his first year.
I was arguing that on here a few weeks ago. One of SKS's major problems is that he does not seem to have a clear vision of what kind of country he wants. He comes across as someone who just wants to be more competent than Boris but still in broadly the same direction. Given the quality of his shadow cabinet this may not be a winning argument.
He needs to set the conversation in the way that Attlee did. What does build back better after Covid mean? Better in what way? What can the State do better and how? What should it maybe back away from? The old saying about being better to be talked about than not applies. At the moment he just looks boring.
Dare I say it but its something that lawyers can be prone to. We get so used to arguing someone else's case we lose a bit of definition on our own.
People say that in business it’s better to do an old idea better than think of a new one... not sure that works as an opposition in politics though. I reckon he is decent, well meaning bloke, but he just doesn’t have the pizazz to oust a popular PM. Doing those short videos to camera is probably a tough gig, beyond me I’m sure, but he looked so wooden in his latest one that Ed Miliband would have been sniggering. So imagine what he’ll be like on one of the pre election debates when he has to do his monologue - cringing already
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
I would expect Christian to still be ahead of No religion though.
The question did not ask 'are you religious?' when I did the census yesterday, it asked 'what is your religion?' ie No religion, Christian (no denomination breakdown so Catholics and evangelicals will boost the figure compared to what the C of E would have got), Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, any other religion?
Anyway assuming that the UK and the world does not carry on being overly obsessed with covid -19 beyond a few months my daughter will be reaching university age soon and is interested and good at "behind the scenes " performing arts (ie film/TV /social media (she has 60K followers on Tik Tok apparently!) production and likes theatre as well. Does anyone know the best universities for this kind of thing . Not to academic but more practical in those areas?
RADA is the global leader.
thanks Max - is that for behind the camera studies as well as in front of the camera stuff as well? She does perform but her interest is in production more
My conversations with people inside government suggest that many ministers appreciate that [vaccination] gloating is unedifying and self-defeating. At the same time, a Brexiter cabinet finds it hard to resist the temptation to exploit the EU’s distress for partisan advantage. The NHS-delivered distribution of the vaccine is the only aspect of the handling of the crisis in which this government can claim to have a record that is impressive. Brexiters want to claim that success, however bogusly, as a justification for their experiment. There are also Tories who believe that a steady drumbeat of cross-Channel conflict serves their electoral interests by keeping the Brexit vote aroused and distracted from the punishing damage the rupture is inflicting on the economy.
A government with an enlightened perspective on the long-term interests of Britain would see value in offering expressions of sympathy and gestures of solidarity with the EU at its time of severe trial. That could generate a lot of goodwill among European voters and leaders. It might be the more effective in winning friends for Britain for being so unexpected from a Brexiter government. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, instead prefers to play tit for tat.
There is a problem with this attempt by ministers to seize the title deeds to the moral high ground. Their behaviour has robbed them of any claims on it. No one is worse qualified to lecture others about contract-breaking than a member of Mr Johnson’s government.
The chances of avoiding a mutually destructive struggle with the EU over vaccine supplies would be much better had Britain a prime minister who was regarded as a trustworthy international partner by his peer group. An escalation into a full-blown “vaccine war” between Britain and the EU would be a disaster for both on many levels.
Vaccine nationalism is already a dimension of this crisis. It would set a terrible example to the world if countries that advertise themselves as mature, sophisticated and internationalist democracies were to unleash a vaccine war in Europe. Britain and her near neighbours are going to have to live and work with each other long after Covid-19 has become history. The UK’s security and prosperity still depend in great part on what happens within the EU. It cannot be in the EU’s interests to have permanently toxified relations with such a substantial country on its border. A vaccine war would be a conflict without a winner, only many losers.
The government has done nothing of the sort. This is an exercise of trying to justify the idiotic position of the EU and falsely accusing the UK government of vaccine nationalism.
Rawnsley has started with his conclusion of "must be the fault of brexit supporters" and then fit the narrative to it and made up "evidence" based on his feelings about the subject to get there. It's a load of old rubbish dressed up as insight.
Rawnsley's is a view that would not save its deposit, if he had the balls to test it with the voters. There's a by-election coming up in Hartlepool - see what they make of it.....
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Anyway assuming that the UK and the world does not carry on being overly obsessed with covid -19 beyond a few months my daughter will be reaching university age soon and is interested and good at "behind the scenes " performing arts (ie film/TV /social media (she has 60K followers on Tik Tok apparently!) production and likes theatre as well. Does anyone know the best universities for this kind of thing . Not to academic but more practical in those areas?
No idea but if I were your daughter I'd compile a list of youngish people she wants to emulate and look them up on Wikipedia and Linkedin to see where they trained. If you are one of the pb tech nerds, you might be able to automate the process.
Or approach it from the other end, and look up the institutions to see who are listed as their alumni.
Note that whatever she does and wherever she goes, she can always sign up to paint the scenery or work the lights for the drama soc.
Anyway assuming that the UK and the world does not carry on being overly obsessed with covid -19 beyond a few months my daughter will be reaching university age soon and is interested and good at "behind the scenes " performing arts (ie film/TV /social media (she has 60K followers on Tik Tok apparently!) production and likes theatre as well. Does anyone know the best universities for this kind of thing . Not to academic but more practical in those areas?
RADA is the global leader.
thanks Max - is that for behind the camera studies as well as in front of the camera stuff as well? She does perform but her interest is in production more
Both.
Thanks - as she is coming from a family (especially me ) with no links or experience in this world it is helpful if anyone who does has insight on here so thanks
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
Catholic church attendance in Scotland is booming on the back of a large influx of eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, who tend to be far more religious (and prone to drink driving and domestic violence, but there we are).
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Call me Dr Suspicious if you like, Ian, but do I get the feeling you’re not a big fan of FPTP?
The people made it quite clear what they think of AV.
Yes, but it wasn't a referendum on STV, or on a Holyrood type system. It was purely on AV.
You think they wouldn't blow a similar raspberry to the rest of PR too? All those legions of voters poised their pencil over the ballot paper going "Well, I think AV an abomination, but if only they had adopted STV, I would happily be voting in favour..." Yeah, right.
Anything but FPTP would have had a Labour-SNP-LibDem government with Jeremy Corbyn as PM on 50.4% of the vote. That stat alone kills PR for the next 30 years....
I don't think that's true. Politics realigns around voting systems.
I'm not in favour of taking the risk that you are wrong....
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
Catholic church attendance in Scotland is booming on the back of a large influx of eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, who tend to be far more religious (and prone to drink driving and domestic violence, but there we are).
That is true of many parts of England as well though, especially rural areas.
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted on policy Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
I've lived in 5 Westminster constituencies and never once been canvassed. Feels bad man.
Nobody cares who I'm voting for.
I don't think I've ever been canvassed for local elections either.
Me neither, I reckon they just canvass the one house with the cameras and press there, then wonder back home/to the pub or whatever.
The only time I was ever doorstep canvassed for a Westminster election (I’ve been done a few times in locals) was in Ceredigion in 2005. Mark Williams.
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
I would expect Christian to still be ahead of No religion though.
The question did not ask 'are you religious?' when I did the census yesterday, it asked 'what is your religion?' ie No religion, Christian (no denomination breakdown so Catholics and evangelicals will boost the figure compared to what the C of E would have got), Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, any other religion?
It's reasonable to assume that people ticking "no religion" aren't religious!
It's also likely that many ticking "Christian" aren't actually religious either.
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
Catholic church attendance in Scotland is booming on the back of a large influx of eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, who tend to be far more religious (and prone to drink driving and domestic violence, but there we are).
That is true of many parts of England as well though, especially rural areas.
You forget that the BHA nobbled that question last time round, as they like to pretend that they represent agnostics.
They have quite a remarkable Parliamentary Network.
The interesting thing is, despite failing miserably under FPTP, Ukip achieved their goal without winning substantial seats.
Interesting to wonder how 2015 would have played out with Cameron standing firm on the issue of Europe.
There were enough UKIP-types within the Tory party to influence the nature of Tory candidates put forward for election. An additional disadvantage of FPTnP is that votes have no influence over the 'type' of Labour or Tory candidate they get to vote for, and simply have to take or leave whoever the party committee puts forward.
EU commissioner Mairead McGuinness has refused to rule out blocking the export of vaccines to the UK.
Asked about the threat by the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme, she said:
Both the EU and the UK have contracts with AstraZeneca, my understanding is that the company is supplying the UK but not the European Union, we are supplying the UK with other vaccines, so I think this is about just openness and transparency and addressing citizens concerns.
She added: “We are being accused of vaccine nationalism... it’s actually vaccine internationalism. We are also one of the biggest donors to Covax.”
She said: “Europe is focused on protecting our citizens.”
The people made it quite clear what they think of AV.
Yes, but it wasn't a referendum on STV, or on a Holyrood type system. It was purely on AV.
You think they wouldn't blow a similar raspberry to the rest of PR too? All those legions of voters poised their pencil over the ballot paper going "Well, I think AV an abomination, but if only they had adopted STV, I would happily be voting in favour..." Yeah, right.
Anything but FPTP would have had a Labour-SNP-LibDem government with Jeremy Corbyn as PM on 50.4% of the vote. That stat alone kills PR for the next 30 years....
AV *is* an abomination. It's a voting system designed to solely benefit the messy middle.
But it is bad for democracy - particularly local democracy - where there is one party that gets 40-45% across a district, but gets 85-90% of the seats.
It's also profoundly dishonest to say that the electorate voted against something more proportional in all elections, when they voted against AV.
AV is not a proportional system.
The electorate - including me - said AV is worse than FPTP. For General Elections.
But I must admit that I think local democracy would probably be served by less partisanship and more forced practicality.
The lack of principle in your arguments on this is Pritti blatant. You’re basically arguing backwards from the result you prefer.
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
Catholic church attendance in Scotland is booming on the back of a large influx of eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, who tend to be far more religious (and prone to drink driving and domestic violence, but there we are).
That is true of many parts of England as well though, especially rural areas.
You forget that the BHA nobbled that question last time round, as they want to pretend that they represent "non-religious".
They have quite a remarkable Parliamentary Network.
Plus of course they are popular rentagobs on TV and radio.
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Arguments against PR:
Hitler.
Godwin's law so soon!
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
I would expect Christian to still be ahead of No religion though.
The question did not ask 'are you religious?' when I did the census yesterday, it asked 'what is your religion?' ie No religion, Christian (no denomination breakdown so Catholics and evangelicals will boost the figure compared to what the C of E would have got), Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, any other religion?
It's reasonable to assume that people ticking "no religion" aren't religious!
It's also likely that many ticking "Christian" aren't actually religious either.
Yes ,If you need to ask this on a census (and I seriously doubt it is critical to the country to know personally) then a better question is " do you believe in God" - if yes - then ask what religion . That way the Christian number is probably more reflective of actual belief than background but it will be a lot lower than is currently counted because of the way it is asked in this census
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Arguments against PR:
Hitler.
Godwin's law so soon!
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
A much better argument against PR is in fact Mussolini. In Germany, a short lived and deeply flawed democracy with substantial dictatorial powers reserved under Article 48 was in play. But in Italy, a system that had been used for fifty years simply proved totally unworkable in practice as it led to such weak leadership the likes of D’Annunzio and Mussolini could simply ignore it and do what they wanted.
The BBC are reporting that Mandelson is urging Starmer to have a policy review. It definitely makes sense to do so, but I wonder when Starmer will risk it. Quite odd that he's not done so in his first year.
I was arguing that on here a few weeks ago. One of SKS's major problems is that he does not seem to have a clear vision of what kind of country he wants. He comes across as someone who just wants to be more competent than Boris but still in broadly the same direction. Given the quality of his shadow cabinet this may not be a winning argument.
He needs to set the conversation in the way that Attlee did. What does build back better after Covid mean? Better in what way? What can the State do better and how? What should it maybe back away from? The old saying about being better to be talked about than not applies. At the moment he just looks boring.
Dare I say it but its something that lawyers can be prone to. We get so used to arguing someone else's case we lose a bit of definition on our own.
I think that is a fair summary, but equally it doesnt recognise the mess Labour were in when Starmer took over. They may well need a leader like Starmer to reset from Corbyn, and accept that they will only win the next election if the govt makes a total mess of things.
EU commissioner Mairead McGuinness has refused to rule out blocking the export of vaccines to the UK.
Asked about the threat by the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme, she said:
Both the EU and the UK have contracts with AstraZeneca, my understanding is that the company is supplying the UK but not the European Union, we are supplying the UK with other vaccines, so I think this is about just openness and transparency and addressing citizens concerns.
She added: “We are being accused of vaccine nationalism... it’s actually vaccine internationalism. We are also one of the biggest donors to Covax.”
She said: “Europe is focused on protecting our citizens.”
Hmm...
"The UK has given £548m to Covax. At a G7 meeting last month, Boris Johnson pledged to donate most of the UK’s surplus vaccine supplies to poorer countries
At the same meeting, G7 leaders increased their contributions to Covax to £5.3bn in total.
Given how many vaccines the UK has bought we are very likely to end up one of the largest single contributors and are very likely to exceed the EU contribution (excluding nation state contributions such as Germany's which are substantial). Really not sure this works as a justification for preventing exports.
There should be an additional top-up to FPTP based on how many total votes were cast across the entire election. Then in a safe seat, voting for a party that's got no chance of winning in FPTP is still somewhat relevant on the top-up system.
A certain number of additional MP's would then be determined in the proportion upon which the parties were voted for on a national basis.
I guess similar to the Holyrood list vote but (a) not split into regions, (b) not voted for separately and (c) not gerrymandered to unproportionally over-represent the parties who got relatively few votes.
That would stop e.g. the hypothetical instance of a party losing every single constituency by one vote and getting no representation at all - nationally they would have piled up a significant fraction of the total vote and should get some representation for that.
It would also go some way to making elections too determined by geography alone.
Would need to work out exactly what the split between FPTP and additional top up MPs would need to be to be reasonable and fair.
That is my Sunday morning not-really-thought-about-it-its-probably-stupid idea. It's probably already a system that has a name.
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
Catholic church attendance in Scotland is booming on the back of a large influx of eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, who tend to be far more religious (and prone to drink driving and domestic violence, but there we are).
That is true of many parts of England as well though, especially rural areas.
You forget that the BHA nobbled that question last time round, as they want to pretend that they represent "non-religious".
They have quite a remarkable Parliamentary Network.
Plus of course they are popular rentagobs on TV and radio.
As are the NSS.
Lol. And yet we still have to put up with Platitude for the Day on Radio 4 every morning, still consisting almost entirely of religious contributors.
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
Catholic church attendance in Scotland is booming on the back of a large influx of eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, who tend to be far more religious (and prone to drink driving and domestic violence, but there we are).
That is true of many parts of England as well though, especially rural areas.
You forget that the BHA nobbled that question last time round, as they want to pretend that they represent "non-religious".
They have quite a remarkable Parliamentary Network.
Plus of course they are popular rentagobs on TV and radio.
As are the NSS.
Lol. And yet we still have to put up with Platitude for the Day on Radio 4 every morning, still consisting almost entirely of religious contributors.
You can choose not to listen to them.
Just as I choose not to pay attention to Keith Porteous Wood when he comes on TV to spout nonsense.
The BBC are reporting that Mandelson is urging Starmer to have a policy review. It definitely makes sense to do so, but I wonder when Starmer will risk it. Quite odd that he's not done so in his first year.
I was arguing that on here a few weeks ago. One of SKS's major problems is that he does not seem to have a clear vision of what kind of country he wants. He comes across as someone who just wants to be more competent than Boris but still in broadly the same direction. Given the quality of his shadow cabinet this may not be a winning argument.
He needs to set the conversation in the way that Attlee did. What does build back better after Covid mean? Better in what way? What can the State do better and how? What should it maybe back away from? The old saying about being better to be talked about than not applies. At the moment he just looks boring.
Dare I say it but its something that lawyers can be prone to. We get so used to arguing someone else's case we lose a bit of definition on our own.
I think that is a fair summary, but equally it doesnt recognise the mess Labour were in when Starmer took over. They may well need a leader like Starmer to reset from Corbyn, and accept that they will only win the next election if the govt makes a total mess of things.
That's entirely fair. Its those who argued that Corbyn was the new Messiah and not a very naughty boy who should really hang their head in shame.
There should be an additional top-up to FPTP based on how many total votes were cast across the entire election. Then in a safe seat, voting for a party that's got no chance of winning in FPTP is still somewhat relevant on the top-up system.
A certain number of additional MP's would then be determined in the proportion upon which the parties were voted for on a national basis.
I guess similar to the Holyrood list vote but (a) not split into regions, (b) not voted for separately and (c) not gerrymandered to unproportionally over-represent the parties who got relatively few votes.
That would stop e.g. the hypothetical instance of a party losing every single constituency by one vote and getting no representation at all - nationally they would have piled up a significant fraction of the total vote and should get some representation for that.
It would also go some way to making elections too determined by geography alone.
Would need to work out exactly what the split between FPTP and additional top up MPs would need to be to be reasonable and fair.
That is my Sunday morning not-really-thought-about-it-its-probably-stupid idea. It's probably already a system that has a name.
It was pretty much what Blair's Jenkins Commission recommended, which Labour had committed to implement, until it reneged in its promise, which taking the long view was as big a mistake by Labour as were some of the LibDems' decisions in coalition.
In an alternative universe somewhere, Jenkins was implemented, and we never had to endure the false Tory majorities that led to Brexit, and the rest is alternative history...
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
Catholic church attendance in Scotland is booming on the back of a large influx of eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, who tend to be far more religious (and prone to drink driving and domestic violence, but there we are).
That is true of many parts of England as well though, especially rural areas.
You forget that the BHA nobbled that question last time round, as they want to pretend that they represent "non-religious".
They have quite a remarkable Parliamentary Network.
Plus of course they are popular rentagobs on TV and radio.
As are the NSS.
Lol. And yet we still have to put up with Platitude for the Day on Radio 4 every morning, still consisting almost entirely of religious contributors.
That has to be the most annoying thing on Radio 4- getting lectured in a happy clappy woke way that the god person then links somehow to religion (even though religion for centuries and even now is very unwoke) makes my blood boil as i drive up the A46 to work. Its as though the BBC is talking a 16th century format (only god people can lecture on morals) and applying super 2021 wokeness to the content. Sort of hell (pun intended) on earth (or at least hell on the A46)
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Arguments against PR:
Hitler.
Godwin's law so soon!
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
I thought Godwin's Law was about accusing other people in a debate of being like Hitler.
To be honest, I don't know if FPTP would have prevented trouble. And actually, I wouldn't be too bothered if we shifted to PR (list rather than some preferential system that shuts out certain views). I doubt we'd end up with the same government all the time. For example, I'm pretty sure that Germany will get a different flavour of coalition this year, which will be interesting.
Fun, mad silly thought experiment for a Sunday morning, since 20-30% of the electorate don’t vote, appoint about 20-30% of random, unaffiliated MPs each year to represent them in parliament.
It would certainly give the parties an incentive to get the vote out at elections.
There should be an additional top-up to FPTP based on how many total votes were cast across the entire election. Then in a safe seat, voting for a party that's got no chance of winning in FPTP is still somewhat relevant on the top-up system.
A certain number of additional MP's would then be determined in the proportion upon which the parties were voted for on a national basis.
I guess similar to the Holyrood list vote but (a) not split into regions, (b) not voted for separately and (c) not gerrymandered to unproportionally over-represent the parties who got relatively few votes.
That would stop e.g. the hypothetical instance of a party losing every single constituency by one vote and getting no representation at all - nationally they would have piled up a significant fraction of the total vote and should get some representation for that.
It would also go some way to making elections too determined by geography alone.
Would need to work out exactly what the split between FPTP and additional top up MPs would need to be to be reasonable and fair.
That is my Sunday morning not-really-thought-about-it-its-probably-stupid idea. It's probably already a system that has a name.
It was pretty much what Blair's Jenkins Commission recommended, which Labour had committed to implement, until it reneged in its promise, which taking the long view was as big a mistake by Labour as were some of the LibDems' decisions in coalition.
In an alternative universe somewhere, Jenkins was implemented, and we never had to endure the false Tory majorities that led to Brexit, and the rest is alternative history...
But Brexit was backed by 52%...
This is my problem. Some people want a voting system because they think it will produce outcomes that they support.
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
Catholic church attendance in Scotland is booming on the back of a large influx of eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, who tend to be far more religious (and prone to drink driving and domestic violence, but there we are).
That is true of many parts of England as well though, especially rural areas.
You forget that the BHA nobbled that question last time round, as they want to pretend that they represent "non-religious".
They have quite a remarkable Parliamentary Network.
Plus of course they are popular rentagobs on TV and radio.
As are the NSS.
Lol. And yet we still have to put up with Platitude for the Day on Radio 4 every morning, still consisting almost entirely of religious contributors.
That has to be the most annoying thing on Radio 4- getting lectured in a happy clappy woke way that the god person then links somehow to religion (even though religion for centuries and even now is very unwoke) makes my blood boil as i drive up the A46 to work
I agree, and try to turn it off when I can. Some of them verge on the ridiculous, "I was walking along the street and saw a plastic bag blowing in the wind, and this made me think of Jesus...." is only marginally a parody.
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Arguments against PR:
Hitler.
Godwin's law so soon!
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
I thought Godwin's Law was about accusing other people in a debate of being like Hitler.
To be honest, I don't know if FPTP would have prevented trouble. And actually, I wouldn't be too bothered if we shifted to PR (list rather than some preferential system that shuts out certain views). I doubt we'd end up with the same government all the time. For example, I'm pretty sure that Germany will get a different flavour of coalition this year, which will be interesting.
FPTP would probably have ensured a strong SPD government with bursts of Centre Party led alternatives.
So it might have prevented the rise of Hitler.
But actually the key factor in the rise of Hitler was the presidential system, which was elected under - ummm - AV.
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Arguments against PR:
Hitler.
Godwin's law so soon!
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
I thought Godwin's Law was about accusing other people in a debate of being like Hitler.
To be honest, I don't know if FPTP would have prevented trouble. And actually, I wouldn't be too bothered if we shifted to PR (list rather than some preferential system that shuts out certain views). I doubt we'd end up with the same government all the time. For example, I'm pretty sure that Germany will get a different flavour of coalition this year, which will be interesting.
No it's "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler becomes more likely"
Most of those cheering FPTP as the creator of good and strong government, were enraged by Blair's third term "majority" on 36% of the vote.
Nationally in the UK, FPTP is a system that avoids Italian style inertia. But which is worse, Italian style inertia, or 64% of the population without a voice in government?
The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.
The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.
Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.
Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%
This "UK census" doesn't include Scotland as a part of the SNP differentiation policy (see Covid et al). I think we are doing our census next year. My wild guess is that Scotland may just be a bit more Christian than the rest of the UK (fewer immigrants from non Christian countries, quite a lot (proportionally) from Catholic ones, the wee Free nutters, etc) so that might just tip the balance.
I would actually have expected it to be less Christian overall, albeit probably also less Muslim and Jewish, but I could easily be wrong.
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
Catholic church attendance in Scotland is booming on the back of a large influx of eastern Europeans, particularly Poles, who tend to be far more religious (and prone to drink driving and domestic violence, but there we are).
That is true of many parts of England as well though, especially rural areas.
You forget that the BHA nobbled that question last time round, as they want to pretend that they represent "non-religious".
They have quite a remarkable Parliamentary Network.
Plus of course they are popular rentagobs on TV and radio.
As are the NSS.
Lol. And yet we still have to put up with Platitude for the Day on Radio 4 every morning, still consisting almost entirely of religious contributors.
That has to be the most annoying thing on Radio 4- getting lectured in a happy clappy woke way that the god person then links somehow to religion (even though religion for centuries and even now is very unwoke) makes my blood boil as i drive up the A46 to work. Its as though the BBC is talking a 16th century format (only god people can lecture on morals) and applying super 2021 wokeness to the content. Sort of hell (pun intended) on earth (or at least hell on the A46)
It is the utter and complete incoherence of their thought processes that has my head coming into contact with the steering wheel at times. There are exceptions but if that is what passes for thought in religious circles...
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Arguments against PR:
Hitler.
Godwin's law so soon!
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
I thought Godwin's Law was about accusing other people in a debate of being like Hitler.
To be honest, I don't know if FPTP would have prevented trouble. And actually, I wouldn't be too bothered if we shifted to PR (list rather than some preferential system that shuts out certain views). I doubt we'd end up with the same government all the time. For example, I'm pretty sure that Germany will get a different flavour of coalition this year, which will be interesting.
FPTP would probably have ensured a strong SPD government with bursts of Centre Party led alternatives.
So it might have prevented the rise of Hitler.
But actually the key factor in the rise of Hitler was the presidential system, which was elected under - ummm - AV.
The reality given the political and economic situation in inter-war Germany is that Hitler would have come to power anyway, whatever the voting system. So it was a cheap and false point in the argument.
A more interesting question is what history would have transpired had Hitler stuck to painting.
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Arguments against PR:
Hitler.
Godwin's law so soon!
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
I thought Godwin's Law was about accusing other people in a debate of being like Hitler.
To be honest, I don't know if FPTP would have prevented trouble. And actually, I wouldn't be too bothered if we shifted to PR (list rather than some preferential system that shuts out certain views). I doubt we'd end up with the same government all the time. For example, I'm pretty sure that Germany will get a different flavour of coalition this year, which will be interesting.
No it's "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler becomes more likely"
I mean, I wasn't comparing anyone or anything to Hitler. I was citing his coming to power as an argument against PR.
There should be an additional top-up to FPTP based on how many total votes were cast across the entire election. Then in a safe seat, voting for a party that's got no chance of winning in FPTP is still somewhat relevant on the top-up system.
A certain number of additional MP's would then be determined in the proportion upon which the parties were voted for on a national basis.
I guess similar to the Holyrood list vote but (a) not split into regions, (b) not voted for separately and (c) not gerrymandered to unproportionally over-represent the parties who got relatively few votes.
That would stop e.g. the hypothetical instance of a party losing every single constituency by one vote and getting no representation at all - nationally they would have piled up a significant fraction of the total vote and should get some representation for that.
It would also go some way to making elections too determined by geography alone.
Would need to work out exactly what the split between FPTP and additional top up MPs would need to be to be reasonable and fair.
That is my Sunday morning not-really-thought-about-it-its-probably-stupid idea. It's probably already a system that has a name.
It was pretty much what Blair's Jenkins Commission recommended, which Labour had committed to implement, until it reneged in its promise, which taking the long view was as big a mistake by Labour as were some of the LibDems' decisions in coalition.
In an alternative universe somewhere, Jenkins was implemented, and we never had to endure the false Tory majorities that led to Brexit, and the rest is alternative history...
But Brexit was backed by 52%...
This is my problem. Some people want a voting system because they think it will produce outcomes that they support.
I think that’s a fair comment and does also include some of those defending FPTP, but reflecting on the past 30-40 years my sincere belief is that FPTP has done more harm than good and we would have been far better off if Blair had not been been distracted by short term party advantage and had implemented Jenkins.
There should be an additional top-up to FPTP based on how many total votes were cast across the entire election. Then in a safe seat, voting for a party that's got no chance of winning in FPTP is still somewhat relevant on the top-up system.
A certain number of additional MP's would then be determined in the proportion upon which the parties were voted for on a national basis.
I guess similar to the Holyrood list vote but (a) not split into regions, (b) not voted for separately and (c) not gerrymandered to unproportionally over-represent the parties who got relatively few votes.
That would stop e.g. the hypothetical instance of a party losing every single constituency by one vote and getting no representation at all - nationally they would have piled up a significant fraction of the total vote and should get some representation for that.
It would also go some way to making elections too determined by geography alone.
Would need to work out exactly what the split between FPTP and additional top up MPs would need to be to be reasonable and fair.
That is my Sunday morning not-really-thought-about-it-its-probably-stupid idea. It's probably already a system that has a name.
It was pretty much what Blair's Jenkins Commission recommended, which Labour had committed to implement, until it reneged in its promise, which taking the long view was as big a mistake by Labour as were some of the LibDems' decisions in coalition.
In an alternative universe somewhere, Jenkins was implemented, and we never had to endure the false Tory majorities that led to Brexit, and the rest is alternative history...
But Brexit was backed by 52%...
This is my problem. Some people want a voting system because they think it will produce outcomes that they support.
I think that’s a fair comment and does also include some of those defending FPTP, but reflecting on the past 30-40 years my sincere belief is that FPTP has done more harm than good and we would have been far better off if Blair had not been been distracted by short term party advantage and had implemented Jenkins.
Of course, go back far enough and we may never joined the EEC in the first place had we not had FPTP.
Most of those cheering FPTP as the creator of good and strong government, were enraged by Blair's third term "majority" on 36% of the vote.
Nationally in the UK, FPTP is a system that avoids Italian style inertia. But which is worse, Italian style inertia, or 64% of the population without a voice in government?
And it is remarkable how quickly Italy or Israel gets mentioned in such discussions, while the happy and stable Scandinavian democracies rarely get considered.
Italian politics is unstable because of Italian history and, well, because they are Italian.
The Conservatives are oddly fetishistic people nowadays, between the flag furore and this, just this week.
In the past, Conservatives were the pragmatists, chiding others for having fixed ideologies rather than horses for courses.
How times change.
I can remember when it was the tory party that led the charge against the National Front politcising the Union Flag... Now they are the spiritual home of the flag shaggers.
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Arguments against PR:
Hitler.
Godwin's law so soon!
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
I thought Godwin's Law was about accusing other people in a debate of being like Hitler.
To be honest, I don't know if FPTP would have prevented trouble. And actually, I wouldn't be too bothered if we shifted to PR (list rather than some preferential system that shuts out certain views). I doubt we'd end up with the same government all the time. For example, I'm pretty sure that Germany will get a different flavour of coalition this year, which will be interesting.
FPTP would probably have ensured a strong SPD government with bursts of Centre Party led alternatives.
So it might have prevented the rise of Hitler.
But actually the key factor in the rise of Hitler was the presidential system, which was elected under - ummm - AV.
The reality given the political and economic situation in inter-war Germany is that Hitler would have come to power anyway, whatever the voting system. So it was a cheap and false point in the argument.
A more interesting question is what history would have transpired had Hitler stuck to painting.
A late night channel 4 documentary hosted by Melvyn Bragg on a lesser known Austrian artist active during the German C20 Renaissance currently being exhibited in the Tate?
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted on policy Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
So I'll put you down as undecided, shall I?
I notice you don't mention this issue with PR
From article The latest comparative study in this vein, carried out by Robert Thomson and his colleagues, detected considerable variation between countries in the extent to which governing parties fulfil their election pledges: they managed it 80% of the time in Sweden and the UK and around 70% in Portugal, but only half of the time in Germany and the Netherlands and a third of the time in Ireland.
Itd be fine if the 2011 result were used as justification not to look at voting reform again. I'd even say if the justification to do this had been left at 'FPTP is the best' thatd be fine too - many people agree it is.
But to claim 2011 was a vote against all other systems not just AV, the actual balloted option?
That's just taking the piss and isn't fooling anyone.
Do it, but dont be dishonest about why, it just insults us.
encourages big tents with a range of views inside a party. Much more likely to generate decisive governments.
Downsides Safe seats that are barely democratic Silencing of minority views limits meaningful choice
For me, in local government, the downsides exceed the benefits. For regional government such as Holyrood it is pretty evenly matched, you can make a case either way. For central government FPTP wins. Patel's one size fits all approach is just stupid.
Additional downsides:
Most votes don't count Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support Majority power is given to minority views Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party) Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees) Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates) Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem) Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
Arguments against PR:
Hitler.
Godwin's law so soon!
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
I thought Godwin's Law was about accusing other people in a debate of being like Hitler.
To be honest, I don't know if FPTP would have prevented trouble. And actually, I wouldn't be too bothered if we shifted to PR (list rather than some preferential system that shuts out certain views). I doubt we'd end up with the same government all the time. For example, I'm pretty sure that Germany will get a different flavour of coalition this year, which will be interesting.
No it's "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler becomes more likely"
I mean, I wasn't comparing anyone or anything to Hitler. I was citing his coming to power as an argument against PR.
That qualifies. The comparison you wanted to plant in readers' minds was between having PR nowadays and Hitler's coming to power in Germany. Which proves the law, despite being nonsense.
Comments
There are of course pockets of very strict Christian observance in Scotland in a way there no longer is in England or Wales, but they are very small.
That'd be like me saying they all drink themselves to death or top themselves due to their depression over their voting system, whereas in fact it's because they have no sun for months over the Winter and terrible weather.
No sense in coming up with policies that will have to be junked immediately because of a crisis. That was one mistake Cameron made (‘share the proceeds of growth’).
Albeit it has left him looking like a bit of a vacuum recently.
Hundreds of seats have changed in England over the last 20 years, and almost all of them in Scotland.
He needs to set the conversation in the way that Attlee did. What does build back better after Covid mean? Better in what way? What can the State do better and how? What should it maybe back away from? The old saying about being better to be talked about than not applies. At the moment he just looks boring.
Dare I say it but its something that lawyers can be prone to. We get so used to arguing someone else's case we lose a bit of definition on our own.
Rawnsley has started with his conclusion of "must be the fault of brexit supporters" and then fit the narrative to it and made up "evidence" based on his feelings about the subject to get there. It's a load of old rubbish dressed up as insight.
Basically, if you can tickle the fancy of 43% of voters and make sure the other 57% are split between at least two, preferably three other parties, you will be OK.
So that 57% is more or less shut out, or, frequently, attacked to shore up support among the 43%.
The Tory MPs vote is not conducted by AV but more something closer to the French second ballot system, except of with multiple rounds rather than just two
Would be a bit easier to take that "enlightened perspective" if the EU hadn't been cheapskates, didn't make their pro rata contributions to vaccine development, rubbed our noses in it that we had overpaid, dicked around for months for their own internal power-mechanistic reasons before entering contracts, then claimed we had colluded to rob them of their vaccines, put a hard border across the island of Ireland, then rubbished the vaccines.
In short, behaved like c***s throughout. Pandering to them "would set a terrible example to the world".
To some extent, we did cause the current problem, but it is unfair to blame a government for having been competent and effective and having made their neighbours look like such a bunch of drunken idiots that they flail and flounder in response.
Scotland was an exception because it saw a centre left nationalist party, the SNP, overtake the centre left Labour Party so was more a realignment of the dominant centre left in Scotland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Welsh_College_of_Music_&_Drama
The UK has done nothing wrong. Indeed, the government has been unusually competent on the vaccine front. Even our idiotic PM did well not to react serious provocations and threats from the EU in the past. Now they're wibbling again (having decided AZN vaccine isn't poisonous, or should be banned, but should be used) about an export ban. Which is illegal and wretched, and create perhaps irresistible pressure in the UK for a retaliatory measure, leading to more dead Britons and EU citizens.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/democratic-satisfaction/
They have been right to do so. The temptation of laughing at UvdL and her cohorts must be resisted. It's not funny. People are dying unnecessarily as a result.
Ultimately the EU decided it would pursue a different strategy to the UK, one that put cost before securing vaccines in a timely manner. The UK directly invested in developing the AZ vaccine and paid a premium to get the first vaccines produced. Upon seeing that the UK's strategy had worked better, the EU began a fairly hostile campaign to undermine public confidence in the AZ vaccine and block exports by AZ to other countries, almost certainlyly meaning the pandemic will now continue for longer and kill more people. This isn't the behaviour of a "mature, sophisticated and internationalist" foreign power interested in "enlightened long term interests".
If the UK Government were to decide, after the EU's hostility, to disregard the contracts it signed at significant cost to the UK taxpayer, and simply hand over the vaccines we paid for to the EU, we wouldn't be sending an "expression of sympathy and gesture of solidarity". It would just be a clear message to the EU that, the next time there is some dispute where the UK is performing better than the EU due to the EU's policy decisions, they can run a hostile campaign against the UK to distract from their own failings and eventually the UK will give in and screw its own citizens over to prop the EU up.
Most votes don't count
Most voters don't see any campaign to win their support
Safe areas for the other party (and to a lesser extent for your own) can be taken for granted on policy
Policy choices and spending are directed toward electorally marginal areas
Opinions that are geographically-based get over-represented and those that aren't get under-represented
The party that 'wins' may not even be the one with the most support
Majority power is given to minority views
Opinions held by significant minorities can go completely or almost unrepresented (cf. Green Party)
Encourages tactical voting and voting negatively, not healthy for our political debate
Depresses turnout, as voting in many locations is perceived as a waste of time
Places excessive power in small internal party cliques (selection and reselection committees)
Forces a two-party system whether or not this best represents the diversity of views in the country
Discourages diverse representation (in multi-member elections parties try to put forward diverse slates)
Because boundaries are all-important this technical detail attracts huge attention with risk of gerrymandering
Elections can be decided purely by the range of candidates who stand (the 'splitting the vote' problem)
Tends toward more extreme politics, particularly if extreme views capture one of the larger parties
Evidence that FPTP countries are more likely to go to war
It's also true that in the system (Labour need to remember this) you need the attract the votes of people who vote currently the other way, so it's good to keep them onside.
The question did not ask 'are you religious?' when I did the census yesterday, it asked 'what is your religion?' ie No religion, Christian (no denomination breakdown so Catholics and evangelicals will boost the figure compared to what the C of E would have got), Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, any other religion?
I've lived in 5 Westminster constituencies and never once been canvassed. Feels bad man.
Nobody cares who I'm voting for.
I don't think I've ever been canvassed for local elections either.
Hitler.
Or approach it from the other end, and look up the institutions to see who are listed as their alumni.
Note that whatever she does and wherever she goes, she can always sign up to paint the scenery or work the lights for the drama soc.
He won the seat.
Interesting to wonder how 2015 would have played out with Cameron standing firm on the issue of Europe.
It's also likely that many ticking "Christian" aren't actually religious either.
They have quite a remarkable Parliamentary Network.
Asked about the threat by the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme, she said:
Both the EU and the UK have contracts with AstraZeneca, my understanding is that the company is supplying the UK but not the European Union, we are supplying the UK with other vaccines, so I think this is about just openness and transparency and addressing citizens concerns.
She added: “We are being accused of vaccine nationalism... it’s actually vaccine internationalism. We are also one of the biggest donors to Covax.”
She said: “Europe is focused on protecting our citizens.”
You’re basically arguing backwards from the result you prefer.
As are the NSS.
Who may well have got a majority under FPTP and never needed to bamboozle the President and other parties into making him chancellor
"The UK has given £548m to Covax. At a G7 meeting last month, Boris Johnson pledged to donate most of the UK’s surplus vaccine supplies to poorer countries
At the same meeting, G7 leaders increased their contributions to Covax to £5.3bn in total.
Joe Biden pledged $4bn to Covax, and Germany pledged $1.2bn. The EU increased their Covax contribution from 500m euros to 1bn euros."
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-03-18/covax-what-is-the-vaccine-supply-scheme-and-is-it-working
Given how many vaccines the UK has bought we are very likely to end up one of the largest single contributors and are very likely to exceed the EU contribution (excluding nation state contributions such as Germany's which are substantial). Really not sure this works as a justification for preventing exports.
A certain number of additional MP's would then be determined in the proportion upon which the parties were voted for on a national basis.
I guess similar to the Holyrood list vote but (a) not split into regions, (b) not voted for separately and (c) not gerrymandered to unproportionally over-represent the parties who got relatively few votes.
That would stop e.g. the hypothetical instance of a party losing every single constituency by one vote and getting no representation at all - nationally they would have piled up a significant fraction of the total vote and should get some representation for that.
It would also go some way to making elections too determined by geography alone.
Would need to work out exactly what the split between FPTP and additional top up MPs would need to be to be reasonable and fair.
That is my Sunday morning not-really-thought-about-it-its-probably-stupid idea. It's probably already a system that has a name.
Just as I choose not to pay attention to Keith Porteous Wood when he comes on TV to spout nonsense.
In an alternative universe somewhere, Jenkins was implemented, and we never had to endure the false Tory majorities that led to Brexit, and the rest is alternative history...
To be honest, I don't know if FPTP would have prevented trouble. And actually, I wouldn't be too bothered if we shifted to PR (list rather than some preferential system that shuts out certain views). I doubt we'd end up with the same government all the time. For example, I'm pretty sure that Germany will get a different flavour of coalition this year, which will be interesting.
It would certainly give the parties an incentive to get the vote out at elections.
This is my problem. Some people want a voting system because they think it will produce outcomes that they support.
So it might have prevented the rise of Hitler.
But actually the key factor in the rise of Hitler was the presidential system, which was elected under - ummm - AV.
This appropriating vaccines manufactured in the EU as EU vaccines is thoroughly despicable.
In the past, Conservatives were the pragmatists, chiding others for having fixed ideologies rather than horses for courses.
How times change.
Nationally in the UK, FPTP is a system that avoids Italian style inertia. But which is worse, Italian style inertia, or 64% of the population without a voice in government?
Good to see some debate. I wonder if this is new?
https://twitter.com/APHClarkson/status/1372971407664103425
A more interesting question is what history would have transpired had Hitler stuck to painting.
Italian politics is unstable because of Italian history and, well, because they are Italian.
From article
The latest comparative study in this vein, carried out by Robert Thomson and his colleagues, detected considerable variation between countries in the extent to which governing parties fulfil their election pledges: they managed it 80% of the time in Sweden and the UK and around 70% in Portugal, but only half of the time in Germany and the Netherlands and a third of the time in Ireland.
source
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/14/politicians-keep-manifesto-promises
But to claim 2011 was a vote against all other systems not just AV, the actual balloted option?
That's just taking the piss and isn't fooling anyone.
Do it, but dont be dishonest about why, it just insults us.