GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
An hour of their time going to the oval post office is not significant.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
Why is it daft?
Complicated, insecure, administratively onerous and puts an additional burden on volunteers at the polling station
It's simple, and shifts the time burden from those who do not drive (and therefore do not carry driving licenses) to people generally
But you know what: we don't have to theorise, we can actually test.
We can choose a dozen local authorities next year who can run with the photos system. If it turns out to be unduly onerous, then it can be ditched.
And, by the way, that's not the only way to do it. You can (as happens in some US states) set aside the ballots of those who vote without photo ID. In the event the election is close enough that they would have made a difference you can verify then individually.
Charles, you (I suspect) own a car and therefore have a driving license. There is therefore no burden on you. Your life changes not one whit. But for someone who has just turned 18, doesn't drive, and has never traveled abroad, well they now have to jump through hoops (that you don't) to vote.
If there is a way to prevent personation without making it harder for certain demographics to vote, that is the morally right thing to do.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
Pfizer is approved down to age 12 in the US, and are looking at similar approvals elsewhere including the UK. Their US trials are now looking at primary school children.
Vaccinating the secondary school pupils over the summer, should make a big difference to infaction rates in September.
Although whether it’s remotely necessary is another matter. The reasons for it arguably have little to do with risk to health, and everything to do with self imposed protocols requiring pupils to be sent home in the event of school outbreaks.
The problem with starting to extend the vaccination programme well beyond where it is required for the good of public health, is that you potentially set up new criteria against which the overall risks are assessed. Once you start vaccinating the young (on anything other than a PURELY voluntary basis) then you will get people using low take up as a risk factor affecting the country. And there is a potential knock on effect down the line if any stories about adverse impacts start circulating - namely that they start having an impact at the margins on unrelated vaccine programmes that DO matter - MMR etc
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
An hour of their time going to the oval post office is not significant.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
Why is it daft?
Complicated, insecure, administratively onerous and puts an additional burden on volunteers at the polling station
It's simple, and shifts the time burden from those who do not drive (and therefore do not carry driving licenses) to people generally
But you know what: we don't have to theorise, we can actually test.
We can choose a dozen local authorities next year who can run with the photos system. If it turns out to be unduly onerous, then it can be ditched.
And, by the way, that's not the only way to do it. You can (as happens in some US states) set aside the ballots of those who vote without photo ID. In the event the election is close enough that they would have made a difference you can verify then individually.
Charles, you (I suspect) own a car and therefore have a driving license. There is therefore no burden on you. Your life changes not one whit. But for someone who has just turned 18, doesn't drive, and has never traveled abroad, well they now have to jump through hoops (that you don't) to vote.
If there is a way to prevent personation without making it harder for certain demographics to vote, that is the morally right thing to do.
They have to go to a post office with a couple of bits of paperwork and a passport photo. That’s it. It’s not a big hoop.
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
Wow, it really does look dire.
Are you deducing that from a 23 second clip of a bunch of reporters saying their names?
Onto happier topics. Moving down to Sidmouth is one of the best things we have ever done. This part of England is indescribably beautiful. The countryside is stunning. To be able to get up in the morning and walk for half an hour into high cliff country, then look down over rolling fields towards Dartmoor in one direction or across the wide blue sea in the other, with nothing but birdsong and the sound of the wind to accompany you, is the stuff of dreams. And there is so much else within easy reach. I have seen many magnificent places in the world and hope to again. But knowing that I will always come home to here is a thought to treasure.
It is rather a nice spot. I have always thought that holidays start when you are past Honiton.
I don't think that I could settle there though in the long term. I like things a little more edgy, even in my fifties.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Indeed. It would be interesting to see a survey of how many people don’t have any form of identification - I’d have thought among those under 25 it would be pretty universal for those who buy alcohol or cigarettes, who attend university, or have ever travelled abroad. Requiring something with an address (the same address as the voter registration) would be more onerous on these groups though.
The danger here is of importing American arguments that relate to systems nothing like what would be proposed here - a system where elections are micromanaged by politicians, and areas where opponents live have fewer polling stations which leads of hours of queues. There’s also no chance of having to apply for new ID a for every election, at an office nowhere near public transport that’s only open from 10am to Midday every other Tuesday.
I'll give GB News a look. I used to watch ITV quite a bit but between Bradby's tiresome attempts at humour and Peston it's off the agenda. Occasionally watch the BBC (mostly Outside Source), but not regularly.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
There is a massive amount of academic and real world evidence that people value their time.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
We’ve already done that and it didn’t
While the government declared the 2019 tests a success, the Electoral Commission was not particularly positive.
Their view was that by far the best solution was to have polling cards with photos on them that would be used as voting ID.
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
Wow, it really does look dire.
I will definitely give the new channel a watch just to see if they really have managed anything different but media of any kind that you cannot interact with is always going to come a poor second to a format that you can.
When there is a big news story I switch on the news but I also fire up my laptop because I know that PB will contain a far wider range of opinions, facts and sources than any single channel and, FWIW I can chuck in my inane thoughts as well and get actual responses from people who are smarter and better informed. No TV channel can compete with that.
I’ve never heard anyone explain how attempting fraud via personation at a level likely to both change elections outcomes and escape detection would actually work in practice. It’s gets spotted.
There are far greater risks (I guess - although I don’t really know what the safeguards are) from people registering fake voters and then using the registrations to cast votes. But i’m Not sure that ID schemes (introduced in such a way that ID requirements are extremely relaxed) would stop that.
As an aside, Devon (along with Wales) was where I spent most of my childhood holidays. I really rather liked it. Sunnier than Wales, although fewer castles, and friendly people.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
How many countries in the world require ID to vote? How many countries in the world deal with impersonation by taking photos?
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
Pfizer is approved down to age 12 in the US, and are looking at similar approvals elsewhere including the UK. Their US trials are now looking at primary school children.
Vaccinating the secondary school pupils over the summer, should make a big difference to infaction rates in September.
Although whether it’s remotely necessary is another matter. The reasons for it arguably have little to do with risk to health, and everything to do with self imposed protocols requiring pupils to be sent home in the event of school outbreaks.
The problem with starting to extend the vaccination programme well beyond where it is required for the good of public health, is that you potentially set up new criteria against which the overall risks are assessed. Once you start vaccinating the young (on anything other than a PURELY voluntary basis) then you will get people using low take up as a risk factor affecting the country. And there is a potential knock on effect down the line if any stories about adverse impacts start circulating - namely that they start having an impact at the margins on unrelated vaccine programmes that DO matter - MMR etc
We immunise males against rubella not because it is dangerous to them, but because it reduces the risk to pregnant women. Vaccinating secondary school pupils against Covid-19 is similar.
Lightfoot, Chicago’s first Black female and first openly gay mayor, said on 19 May she would grant interviews marking the second anniversary of her inauguration on 20 May exclusively to journalists of color.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
There is a massive amount of academic and real world evidence that people value their time.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
i am sensing there is going to be mass defiance and protests (with a lot more than fringe support) if social distancing rules are kept beyond 21st June. The government will lose big time if they persist with anything beyond this.Johnson will for the first time in his career be genuinely disliked by many of the population and not just the metro elite
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
How many countries in the world require ID to vote? How many countries in the world deal with impersonation by taking photos?
If we had compulsory photo ID, I would have absolutely no issue.
I object to any policy that imposes differential burdens.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
Who gets the vote will be the same as those who would qualify for a Scottish passport in the event of independence. This must be announced by the Scottish government before any referendum. Tricky.
Over 16s on the Scottish electoral register. Sounds fairly straightforward to me.
That's not the issue here. The question is whether natural-born expatriate Scots, many living in England, get the vote. British expatriates are to have their vote restored to them.
No Expat Scots in England are registered in a different constituency.
Possibly a few expat Scots overseas may get the vote, such as Mr Connery in the Bahamas.
A ghoulish notion, the great Scot voting from the grave.
Lot of ignorance here as usual, you must be living in Scotland and have an address here registered as your actual main residence on the electoral roll to get a vote.
It would be only fair that if expat Scots get to vote in an Indyref that non-Scots living in Scotland are denied a vote. (Although I suspect that the original suggestion has nothing to do with fairness.)
Fairlie, not worth bothering with the crap spouted on here by halfwits and Little Englanders. Sad losers.
Mr. L, jein. You're really into current events, certainly by way of comparison with Average Man, whereas lots of others are barely interested and just want some basic and important facts (there's a pandemic, rather than detail on whether it escaped from a Wuhan lab).
Although your comment does make me wonder if livestreaming not news but discussion of news programmes might become a thing.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
There is a massive amount of academic and real world evidence that people value their time.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
We’ve already done that and it didn’t
While the government declared the 2019 tests a success, the Electoral Commission was not particularly positive.
Their view was that by far the best solution was to have polling cards with photos on them that would be used as voting ID.
Easy enough to do with online registration, just upload a selfie. What 18 year old cannot do that nowadays?
Indeed it seems obviously a better way. There could even be an option to not upload, with those required to produce photo ID on the day.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
An hour of their time going to the oval post office is not significant.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
Why is it daft?
Complicated, insecure, administratively onerous and puts an additional burden on volunteers at the polling station
It's simple, and shifts the time burden from those who do not drive (and therefore do not carry driving licenses) to people generally
But you know what: we don't have to theorise, we can actually test.
We can choose a dozen local authorities next year who can run with the photos system. If it turns out to be unduly onerous, then it can be ditched.
And, by the way, that's not the only way to do it. You can (as happens in some US states) set aside the ballots of those who vote without photo ID. In the event the election is close enough that they would have made a difference you can verify then individually.
Charles, you (I suspect) own a car and therefore have a driving license. There is therefore no burden on you. Your life changes not one whit. But for someone who has just turned 18, doesn't drive, and has never traveled abroad, well they now have to jump through hoops (that you don't) to vote.
If there is a way to prevent personation without making it harder for certain demographics to vote, that is the morally right thing to do.
They have to go to a post office with a couple of bits of paperwork and a passport photo. That’s it. It’s not a big hoop.
You mean they have to get a passport photo (from where, and how much?) and some paperwork, then take an afternoon off work to go to the Post Office. It is a bigger hoop than you suggest, and one that will apply only to some people; things might be different if everyone had to acquire a special voter ID card.
Keep trying to change the subject and prove how English you are. Scotland was several weeks behind England as you well know and still has only 60%% rate of them. You cannot fake those numbers unfortunately for you , but keep supporting those liars.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
There is something wonderful about turning up to vote having forgotten your polling card, giving your name and address and being given your ballot. Its something to be genuinely proud of in our system. Voting is a civic duty and you are trusted to do it right. I think personation is almost non existent and I have seen no evidence otherwise. Voter ID at the polling station seems to me a solution in search of a problem. I really would not want anyone on the electoral register who turned up to do their civic duty turned away because they did not have photo ID.
There is more evidence of problems with postal voting where it is so much easier to collect or farm the votes of the vulnerable and complete them on their behalf. Surely this is where we need to concentrate our efforts.
Another excellent post David. As I detailed out the other day personation really is impossible over a handful of votes without getting caught. Postal votes are a great deal bigger risk.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
Personally, I blame the moronic, denialist “lockdown sceptics”.
Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunetra Gupta, Ivor Cummins, Carl Heneghan, Michael Yeadon, and all those who listened to them got their way last autumn as the second wave was building, and we incurred a second wave that dwarfed the first, with hospitals within millimetres of collapsing under the load (I personally know administrators who were being hurriedly briefed to help out on wards, while the health service desperately shuttled ICU patients hundreds of miles up and down the country searching for any spare capacity).
And now Boris is all twitchy about that happening again when there’s actually truly a negligible chance of it. Because he heard “herd immunity”, “cases less severe or not even real”, “no second wave”, and the rest of it before.
Onto happier topics. Moving down to Sidmouth is one of the best things we have ever done. This part of England is indescribably beautiful. The countryside is stunning. To be able to get up in the morning and walk for half an hour into high cliff country, then look down over rolling fields towards Dartmoor in one direction or across the wide blue sea in the other, with nothing but birdsong and the sound of the wind to accompany you, is the stuff of dreams. And there is so much else within easy reach. I have seen many magnificent places in the world and hope to again. But knowing that I will always come home to here is a thought to treasure.
It is rather a nice spot. I have always thought that holidays start when you are past Honiton.
I don't think that I could settle there though in the long term. I like things a little more edgy, even in my fifties.
I am happy to visit edgy. I am a long way over living with it!
Photo Ids for voting is about the worst idea i have heard this year. What is the point? Most voter fraud occurs in postal votes and if anyone is determined to vote in person when they should not then they are likely to know somebody who can supply a false ID - For god's sake nearly all 16/17 year olds I know have got fake ID for going in pubs . Getting a fake Id for this stuff is as hard as going on Tik Tok and ordering one
i am sensing there is going to be mass defiance and protests (with a lot more than fringe support) if social distancing rules are kept beyond 21st June. The government will lose big time if they persist with anything beyond this
Its happened already. My incredibly young and beautiful 60 year old wife met up with 3 school friends of the same age for a birthday this last week at a gastropub in Arbroath (they exist, apparently). This was a breach of the law since they came from 4 households. No one cared at all. They are not natural lawbreakers but they are completely indifferent to absurd rules like this. Clearly the establishments have no interest in seeking to police or regulate this either.
When they first opened cafes and restaurants in Edinburgh asked you to register your presence electronically. It is really obvious how quickly that is just being abandoned because no one can be bothered. If Sturgeon or Boris keep trying to tell people how to live their lives there is going to be a significant backlash. Boris at least is smart enough to know this and will not try. Guidance maybe, regulation definitely not.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
Personally, I blame the moronic, denialist “lockdown sceptics”.
Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunetra Gupta, Ivor Cummins, Carl Heneghan, Michael Yeadon, and all those who listened to them got their way last autumn as the second wave was building, and we incurred a second wave that dwarfed the first, with hospitals within millimetres of collapsing under the load (I personally know administrators who were being hurriedly briefed to help out on wards, while the health service desperately shuttled ICU patients hundreds of miles up and down the country searching for any spare capacity).
And now Boris is all twitchy about that happening again when there’s actually truly a negligible chance of it. Because he heard “herd immunity”, “cases less severe or not even real”, “no second wave”, and the rest of it before.
Human nature, innit?
"There is no case for extending [lockdown] into July and August – and the economic cost will be crippling."
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
Pfizer is approved down to age 12 in the US, and are looking at similar approvals elsewhere including the UK. Their US trials are now looking at primary school children.
Vaccinating the secondary school pupils over the summer, should make a big difference to infaction rates in September.
Although whether it’s remotely necessary is another matter. The reasons for it arguably have little to do with risk to health, and everything to do with self imposed protocols requiring pupils to be sent home in the event of school outbreaks.
The problem with starting to extend the vaccination programme well beyond where it is required for the good of public health, is that you potentially set up new criteria against which the overall risks are assessed. Once you start vaccinating the young (on anything other than a PURELY voluntary basis) then you will get people using low take up as a risk factor affecting the country. And there is a potential knock on effect down the line if any stories about adverse impacts start circulating - namely that they start having an impact at the margins on unrelated vaccine programmes that DO matter - MMR etc
We immunise males against rubella not because it is dangerous to them, but because it reduces the risk to pregnant women. Vaccinating secondary school pupils against Covid-19 is similar.
Well also because it would be more complicated to have both MM and MMR vaccines. But generally the purpose of childhood vaccination programmes (I think?) is to get herd immunity in children. It is not really to protect adults. And MMR is long established as a vaccine believed to be safe for children without side effects.
Are you confident the justification for vaccinating children en masse against Covid, through emergency authorisations and on the back of limited trial data, is sufficient to potentially jeopardise the reputation of childhood vaccinations in general?
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
An hour of their time going to the oval post office is not significant.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
Why is it daft?
Complicated, insecure, administratively onerous and puts an additional burden on volunteers at the polling station
It's simple, and shifts the time burden from those who do not drive (and therefore do not carry driving licenses) to people generally
But you know what: we don't have to theorise, we can actually test.
We can choose a dozen local authorities next year who can run with the photos system. If it turns out to be unduly onerous, then it can be ditched.
And, by the way, that's not the only way to do it. You can (as happens in some US states) set aside the ballots of those who vote without photo ID. In the event the election is close enough that they would have made a difference you can verify then individually.
Charles, you (I suspect) own a car and therefore have a driving license. There is therefore no burden on you. Your life changes not one whit. But for someone who has just turned 18, doesn't drive, and has never traveled abroad, well they now have to jump through hoops (that you don't) to vote.
If there is a way to prevent personation without making it harder for certain demographics to vote, that is the morally right thing to do.
They have to go to a post office with a couple of bits of paperwork and a passport photo. That’s it. It’s not a big hoop.
You mean they have to get a passport photo (from where, and how much?) and some paperwork, then take an afternoon off work to go to the Post Office. It is a bigger hoop than you suggest, and one that will apply only to some people; things might be different if everyone had to acquire a special voter ID card.
You never been in a post office in last 10 years, they do it all even down to completing your form and putting the photo they took in your envelope and posting it. Only effort you have is to give them your details and some cash.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
There is a massive amount of academic and real world evidence that people value their time.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
We’ve already done that and it didn’t
While the government declared the 2019 tests a success, the Electoral Commission was not particularly positive.
Their view was that by far the best solution was to have polling cards with photos on them that would be used as voting ID.
Polling cards with photos is theoretically good, but would require everyone to register and be verified, rather than just those with no existing ID.
I’ve never heard anyone explain how attempting fraud via personation at a level likely to both change elections outcomes and escape detection would actually work in practice. It’s gets spotted.
There are far greater risks (I guess - although I don’t really know what the safeguards are) from people registering fake voters and then using the registrations to cast votes. But i’m Not sure that ID schemes (introduced in such a way that ID requirements are extremely relaxed) would stop that.
The unpoliced area is postal voting. This is an open door for both inventing people and removing the secret nature of the ballot. To make requirements of people voting in person which are greater than of those voting by post is irrational.
Neither Lab nor Con wants to touch the issue as they are both quite reliant on postal votes. Dealing with a more or less non existent polling station issue is first class substitution activity and diversionary tactics.
i am sensing there is going to be mass defiance and protests (with a lot more than fringe support) if social distancing rules are kept beyond 21st June. The government will lose big time if they persist with anything beyond this.Johnson will for the first time in his career be genuinely disliked by many of the population and not just the metro elite
Our HCAs that do the door checks on outpatients get an unbelievable amount of abuse from patients relatives* in order to minimise crowding in outpatients. It gets worse each week. So much so that we now have two on the door to back each other up.
*relatives are permitted if needed because of deafness, translation etc, but have to wait outside until the patient is called into the consulting room.
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
Wow, it really does look dire.
Pretty sure that W*ke is going to get the blame if GB News absolutely tanks.
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
Wow, it really does look dire.
Pretty sure that W*ke is going to get the blame if GB News absolutely tanks.
Sure, it won't be the fault of the has-beens setting up a dying format.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
Pfizer is approved down to age 12 in the US, and are looking at similar approvals elsewhere including the UK. Their US trials are now looking at primary school children.
Vaccinating the secondary school pupils over the summer, should make a big difference to infaction rates in September.
Although whether it’s remotely necessary is another matter. The reasons for it arguably have little to do with risk to health, and everything to do with self imposed protocols requiring pupils to be sent home in the event of school outbreaks.
The problem with starting to extend the vaccination programme well beyond where it is required for the good of public health, is that you potentially set up new criteria against which the overall risks are assessed. Once you start vaccinating the young (on anything other than a PURELY voluntary basis) then you will get people using low take up as a risk factor affecting the country. And there is a potential knock on effect down the line if any stories about adverse impacts start circulating - namely that they start having an impact at the margins on unrelated vaccine programmes that DO matter - MMR etc
We immunise males against rubella not because it is dangerous to them, but because it reduces the risk to pregnant women. Vaccinating secondary school pupils against Covid-19 is similar.
Agree, and but the principal rubella risk is to babies in which males have an equal responsibility.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
Personally, I blame the moronic, denialist “lockdown sceptics”.
Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunetra Gupta, Ivor Cummins, Carl Heneghan, Michael Yeadon, and all those who listened to them got their way last autumn as the second wave was building, and we incurred a second wave that dwarfed the first, with hospitals within millimetres of collapsing under the load (I personally know administrators who were being hurriedly briefed to help out on wards, while the health service desperately shuttled ICU patients hundreds of miles up and down the country searching for any spare capacity).
And now Boris is all twitchy about that happening again when there’s actually truly a negligible chance of it. Because he heard “herd immunity”, “cases less severe or not even real”, “no second wave”, and the rest of it before.
Human nature, innit?
"There is no case for extending [lockdown] into July and August – and the economic cost will be crippling."
Oh, I agree that, at the very least, we can get rid of most, if not all, of the remaining restrictions. (Incidentally, I have noticed that “lockdown” now seems to equate to “any restrictions”, which implies that Sweden has been in “lockdown” since last March. I doubt that many who hold Sweden up as an example will have noticed the double standard, though).
The problem is that there were swathes of articles and arguments very similar to that in September and October last year. When they were bollocks.
Which means that we’re in the difficult space of arguing, “No, they WERE delusional bollocks then, but NOW they’re correct.” Which may be true, but runs up against some significant heuristics and biases in the human brain. There’s a reason the saying “once bitten, twice shy” exists.
Boris got burned last autumn. And now everyone is saying (again) that the fire is out, just put your hand there again - after proclaiming that it’s irreversible and you won’t ever pull your hand back.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
There is something wonderful about turning up to vote having forgotten your polling card, giving your name and address and being given your ballot. Its something to be genuinely proud of in our system. Voting is a civic duty and you are trusted to do it right. I think personation is almost non existent and I have seen no evidence otherwise. Voter ID at the polling station seems to me a solution in search of a problem. I really would not want anyone on the electoral register who turned up to do their civic duty turned away because they did not have photo ID.
There is more evidence of problems with postal voting where it is so much easier to collect or farm the votes of the vulnerable and complete them on their behalf. Surely this is where we need to concentrate our efforts.
Another excellent post David. As I detailed out the other day personation really is impossible over a handful of votes without getting caught. Postal votes are a great deal bigger risk.
Postal vote risk is a lot less now that there are rigorous checks including signature cross-checking. Something like 5% of them are already rejected; whether these are actually attempted frauds or, much more likely, simple mistakes by forgetful applicants (like Barnesian's anecedote of putting the wrong birth year down) is hard to prove.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
There is a massive amount of academic and real world evidence that people value their time.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
We’ve already done that and it didn’t
While the government declared the 2019 tests a success, the Electoral Commission was not particularly positive.
Their view was that by far the best solution was to have polling cards with photos on them that would be used as voting ID.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
Personally, I blame the moronic, denialist “lockdown sceptics”.
Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunetra Gupta, Ivor Cummins, Carl Heneghan, Michael Yeadon, and all those who listened to them got their way last autumn as the second wave was building, and we incurred a second wave that dwarfed the first, with hospitals within millimetres of collapsing under the load (I personally know administrators who were being hurriedly briefed to help out on wards, while the health service desperately shuttled ICU patients hundreds of miles up and down the country searching for any spare capacity).
And now Boris is all twitchy about that happening again when there’s actually truly a negligible chance of it. Because he heard “herd immunity”, “cases less severe or not even real”, “no second wave”, and the rest of it before.
Human nature, innit?
"There is no case for extending [lockdown] into July and August – and the economic cost will be crippling."
Oh, I agree that, at the very least, we can get rid of most, if not all, of the remaining restrictions. (Incidentally, I have noticed that “lockdown” now seems to equate to “any restrictions”, which implies that Sweden has been in “lockdown” since last March. I doubt that many who hold Sweden up as an example will have noticed the double standard, though).
The problem is that there were swathes of articles and arguments very similar to that in September and October last year. When they were bollocks.
Which means that we’re in the difficult space of arguing, “No, they WERE delusional bollocks then, but NOW they’re correct.” Which may be true, but runs up against some significant heuristics and biases in the human brain. There’s a reason the saying “once bitten, twice shy” exists.
Boris got burned last autumn. And now everyone is saying (again) that the fire is out, just put your hand there again - after proclaiming that it’s irreversible and you won’t ever pull your hand back.
The vaccines are a difference between now and then.
Plus there's been a great exaggeration (from both sides) about what the scientists less convinced about lockdown were saying last autumn.
Plus the Zero Covid scientists have been as wrong as often if not more as the other ones.
Reality is that in a fast moving novel pandemic everyone will get and has got some things wrong.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
Personally, I blame the moronic, denialist “lockdown sceptics”.
Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunetra Gupta, Ivor Cummins, Carl Heneghan, Michael Yeadon, and all those who listened to them got their way last autumn as the second wave was building, and we incurred a second wave that dwarfed the first, with hospitals within millimetres of collapsing under the load (I personally know administrators who were being hurriedly briefed to help out on wards, while the health service desperately shuttled ICU patients hundreds of miles up and down the country searching for any spare capacity).
And now Boris is all twitchy about that happening again when there’s actually truly a negligible chance of it. Because he heard “herd immunity”, “cases less severe or not even real”, “no second wave”, and the rest of it before.
Human nature, innit?
"There is no case for extending [lockdown] into July and August – and the economic cost will be crippling."
Oh, I agree that, at the very least, we can get rid of most, if not all, of the remaining restrictions. (Incidentally, I have noticed that “lockdown” now seems to equate to “any restrictions”, which implies that Sweden has been in “lockdown” since last March. I doubt that many who hold Sweden up as an example will have noticed the double standard, though).
The problem is that there were swathes of articles and arguments very similar to that in September and October last year. When they were bollocks.
Which means that we’re in the difficult space of arguing, “No, they WERE delusional bollocks then, but NOW they’re correct.” Which may be true, but runs up against some significant heuristics and biases in the human brain. There’s a reason the saying “once bitten, twice shy” exists.
Boris got burned last autumn. And now everyone is saying (again) that the fire is out, just put your hand there again - after proclaiming that it’s irreversible and you won’t ever pull your hand back.
Actually, I do wonder if he hadn’t proclaimed the roadmap as “irreversible”, would he have been willing to be a bit more adventurous?
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
There is a massive amount of academic and real world evidence that people value their time.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
We’ve already done that and it didn’t
While the government declared the 2019 tests a success, the Electoral Commission was not particularly positive.
Their view was that by far the best solution was to have polling cards with photos on them that would be used as voting ID.
Polling cards with photos is theoretically good, but would require everyone to register and be verified, rather than just those with no existing ID.
That is the point. If everyone has to jump through the same hoops, the system is fairer. If only some people do, then that group is less likely to vote than people who already have ID.
Some people think the disadvantaged group lean towards Labour, and if Labour supporters can be made less likely to vote, that will help the government that is introducing these measures. However, some Conservatives now worry it will be their own older supporters, and those in red wall seats, whose votes will be suppressed.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
Pfizer is approved down to age 12 in the US, and are looking at similar approvals elsewhere including the UK. Their US trials are now looking at primary school children.
Vaccinating the secondary school pupils over the summer, should make a big difference to infaction rates in September.
Although whether it’s remotely necessary is another matter. The reasons for it arguably have little to do with risk to health, and everything to do with self imposed protocols requiring pupils to be sent home in the event of school outbreaks.
The problem with starting to extend the vaccination programme well beyond where it is required for the good of public health, is that you potentially set up new criteria against which the overall risks are assessed. Once you start vaccinating the young (on anything other than a PURELY voluntary basis) then you will get people using low take up as a risk factor affecting the country. And there is a potential knock on effect down the line if any stories about adverse impacts start circulating - namely that they start having an impact at the margins on unrelated vaccine programmes that DO matter - MMR etc
We immunise males against rubella not because it is dangerous to them, but because it reduces the risk to pregnant women. Vaccinating secondary school pupils against Covid-19 is similar.
Well also because it would be more complicated to have both MM and MMR vaccines. But generally the purpose of childhood vaccination programmes (I think?) is to get herd immunity in children. It is not really to protect adults. And MMR is long established as a vaccine believed to be safe for children without side effects.
Are you confident the justification for vaccinating children en masse against Covid, through emergency authorisations and on the back of limited trial data, is sufficient to potentially jeopardise the reputation of childhood vaccinations in general?
Rubella is only a risk if caught in pregnancy, so we immunise children to protect the unborn.
School closures and exclusions for covid outbreaks are highly disruptive, and I suspect that immunising Secondary school pupils with Pfizer would get a very high uptake.
I don't think there would be any adverse effect on preschool vaccination rates, indeed the success of Covid-19 vaccinations may well increase uptake of these by demonstrating how protection against infectios disease is an important thing.
There are other benefits too, such as not needing to quarantine when going on holiday to places such as Greece etc.
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
Wow, it really does look dire.
Pretty sure that W*ke is going to get the blame if GB News absolutely tanks.
Sure, it won't be the fault of the has-beens setting up a dying format.
From the talk of interaction on the GB News videos, I wonder if they mean phone-ins, in which case, is GB News basically LBC Radio on telly?
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
There is a massive amount of academic and real world evidence that people value their time.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
We’ve already done that and it didn’t
While the government declared the 2019 tests a success, the Electoral Commission was not particularly positive.
Their view was that by far the best solution was to have polling cards with photos on them that would be used as voting ID.
That is a great and workable solution, but for a barely noticeable problem. However, if the intention is the wholesale suppression of specific voter cohorts it doesn't tick any of the boxes.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
Personally, I blame the moronic, denialist “lockdown sceptics”.
Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunetra Gupta, Ivor Cummins, Carl Heneghan, Michael Yeadon, and all those who listened to them got their way last autumn as the second wave was building, and we incurred a second wave that dwarfed the first, with hospitals within millimetres of collapsing under the load (I personally know administrators who were being hurriedly briefed to help out on wards, while the health service desperately shuttled ICU patients hundreds of miles up and down the country searching for any spare capacity).
And now Boris is all twitchy about that happening again when there’s actually truly a negligible chance of it. Because he heard “herd immunity”, “cases less severe or not even real”, “no second wave”, and the rest of it before.
Human nature, innit?
"There is no case for extending [lockdown] into July and August – and the economic cost will be crippling."
Oh, I agree that, at the very least, we can get rid of most, if not all, of the remaining restrictions. (Incidentally, I have noticed that “lockdown” now seems to equate to “any restrictions”, which implies that Sweden has been in “lockdown” since last March. I doubt that many who hold Sweden up as an example will have noticed the double standard, though).
The problem is that there were swathes of articles and arguments very similar to that in September and October last year. When they were bollocks.
Which means that we’re in the difficult space of arguing, “No, they WERE delusional bollocks then, but NOW they’re correct.” Which may be true, but runs up against some significant heuristics and biases in the human brain. There’s a reason the saying “once bitten, twice shy” exists.
Boris got burned last autumn. And now everyone is saying (again) that the fire is out, just put your hand there again - after proclaiming that it’s irreversible and you won’t ever pull your hand back.
The vaccines are a difference between now and then.
Plus there's been a great exaggeration (from both sides) about what the scientists less convinced about lockdown were saying last autumn.
Plus the Zero Covid scientists have been as wrong as often if not more as the other ones.
Reality is that in a fast moving novel pandemic everyone will get and has got some things wrong.
Yes. But the main criteria for decision-making in this will be that those who advocated tighter restrictions in the past were shown to be correct and those who advocated looser ones were wrong.
It’s like political campaigning: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing”. Doesn’t matter what the rights or wrongs of the matter actually are, System 1 has leapt to an answer and it becomes the default state. It can be changed, but it’s an uphill struggle.
The boy who cried “wolf!” was completely correct the final time he shouted it; things were indeed different, but those who heard had already made up their mind.
Boris is insisting on solid and irrefutable proof at every stage, when if he hadn’t been so badly burned, he may well (almost certainly) have been more sanguine.
I’ve seen the exact same thing in risk-takers who have something go badly wrong; they switch to being overcautious.
One of the last things I saw when regularly watching news on TV was a faintly hilarious ITV segment about declining TV audiences and rising viewing hours of Youtube and the like. It was bizarre (for me) to see two men unable to comprehend why it might be.
I tend to watch Youtube videos when eating my lunch. History or videogames, typically (I occasionally watch F1 videos by The Race). The timing works out pretty nicely, doubling up as a short break from work. And I don't need to worry about being a little late or early.
Plus, I don't get shit attempts at humour, or slanted reporting. I don't have a party line regurgitated, or a blind consensus repeated. For more interesting and (if not objective) multiple perspectives on politics I've got PB.
That's not to say TV news is worthless. I think mainstream media, both broadcast and print, has a crucial role to play. But broadcast has thrown overboard a lot of its advantages. When I know the political perspective of a broadcaster (either in terms of channel or presenter) that massively dilutes my trust in them. And I don't watch news because I want to hear shit attempts at humour from a man whose principle job is to read an autocue: it's because I want to learn about events around the world.
If broadcast media focused on getting the basics right, audiences might not be declining quite so much.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
Personally, I blame the moronic, denialist “lockdown sceptics”.
Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunetra Gupta, Ivor Cummins, Carl Heneghan, Michael Yeadon, and all those who listened to them got their way last autumn as the second wave was building, and we incurred a second wave that dwarfed the first, with hospitals within millimetres of collapsing under the load (I personally know administrators who were being hurriedly briefed to help out on wards, while the health service desperately shuttled ICU patients hundreds of miles up and down the country searching for any spare capacity).
And now Boris is all twitchy about that happening again when there’s actually truly a negligible chance of it. Because he heard “herd immunity”, “cases less severe or not even real”, “no second wave”, and the rest of it before.
Human nature, innit?
"There is no case for extending [lockdown] into July and August – and the economic cost will be crippling."
One of the last things I saw when regularly watching news on TV was a faintly hilarious ITV segment about declining TV audiences and rising viewing hours of Youtube and the like. It was bizarre (for me) to see two men unable to comprehend why it might be.
I tend to watch Youtube videos when eating my lunch. History or videogames, typically (I occasionally watch F1 videos by The Race). The timing works out pretty nicely, doubling up as a short break from work. And I don't need to worry about being a little late or early.
Plus, I don't get shit attempts at humour, or slanted reporting. I don't have a party line regurgitated, or a blind consensus repeated. For more interesting and (if not objective) multiple perspectives on politics I've got PB.
That's not to say TV news is worthless. I think mainstream media, both broadcast and print, has a crucial role to play. But broadcast has thrown overboard a lot of its advantages. When I know the political perspective of a broadcaster (either in terms of channel or presenter) that massively dilutes my trust in them. And I don't watch news because I want to hear shit attempts at humour from a man whose principle job is to read an autocue: it's because I want to learn about events around the world.
If broadcast media focused on getting the basics right, audiences might not be declining quite so much.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
Pfizer is approved down to age 12 in the US, and are looking at similar approvals elsewhere including the UK. Their US trials are now looking at primary school children.
Vaccinating the secondary school pupils over the summer, should make a big difference to infaction rates in September.
Although whether it’s remotely necessary is another matter. The reasons for it arguably have little to do with risk to health, and everything to do with self imposed protocols requiring pupils to be sent home in the event of school outbreaks.
The problem with starting to extend the vaccination programme well beyond where it is required for the good of public health, is that you potentially set up new criteria against which the overall risks are assessed. Once you start vaccinating the young (on anything other than a PURELY voluntary basis) then you will get people using low take up as a risk factor affecting the country. And there is a potential knock on effect down the line if any stories about adverse impacts start circulating - namely that they start having an impact at the margins on unrelated vaccine programmes that DO matter - MMR etc
We immunise males against rubella not because it is dangerous to them, but because it reduces the risk to pregnant women. Vaccinating secondary school pupils against Covid-19 is similar.
Well also because it would be more complicated to have both MM and MMR vaccines. But generally the purpose of childhood vaccination programmes (I think?) is to get herd immunity in children. It is not really to protect adults. And MMR is long established as a vaccine believed to be safe for children without side effects.
Are you confident the justification for vaccinating children en masse against Covid, through emergency authorisations and on the back of limited trial data, is sufficient to potentially jeopardise the reputation of childhood vaccinations in general?
Rubella is only a risk if caught in pregnancy, so we immunise children to protect the unborn.
School closures and exclusions for covid outbreaks are highly disruptive, and I suspect that immunising Secondary school pupils with Pfizer would get a very high uptake.
I don't think there would be any adverse effect on preschool vaccination rates, indeed the success of Covid-19 vaccinations may well increase uptake of these by demonstrating how protection against infectios disease is an important thing.
There are other benefits too, such as not needing to quarantine when going on holiday to places such as Greece etc.
My arguments about the risk to childhood vaccinations presuppose an as yet unidentified risk (or perception of risk from “anecdotal” or ad-hoc publicised cases) to Children from Covid vaccines. I’m not saying that vaccinating per se would create a problem.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
There is something wonderful about turning up to vote having forgotten your polling card, giving your name and address and being given your ballot. Its something to be genuinely proud of in our system. Voting is a civic duty and you are trusted to do it right. I think personation is almost non existent and I have seen no evidence otherwise. Voter ID at the polling station seems to me a solution in search of a problem. I really would not want anyone on the electoral register who turned up to do their civic duty turned away because they did not have photo ID.
There is more evidence of problems with postal voting where it is so much easier to collect or farm the votes of the vulnerable and complete them on their behalf. Surely this is where we need to concentrate our efforts.
Another excellent post David. As I detailed out the other day personation really is impossible over a handful of votes without getting caught. Postal votes are a great deal bigger risk.
Postal vote risk is a lot less now that there are rigorous checks including signature cross-checking. Something like 5% of them are already rejected; whether these are actually attempted frauds or, much more likely, simple mistakes by forgetful applicants (like Barnesian's anecedote of putting the wrong birth year down) is hard to prove.
I agree. I was just making the comparison in risk.
Launching a new TV news channel in 2021 feels about 30 years too late.
It’s going to very interesting to see how they get on. They’ve clearly invested millions into the operation already, and are going to be spending big once they go live, even if production costs have fallen quite a big over the last few years. They’ve got a lot of journalists on board, many of whom they’ve poached from existing broadcasters which has presumably cost quite a bit.
TV advertising is unlikely to cover the whole cost, although it may cover the costs of the TV hosting and satellite fees, which they think is important to the brand to be on TV not just online. They’ll need other revenue sources from somewhere, maybe sponsored segments or scripted ads in online content as the podcasters do.
Ironically, their sucesss as building a brand could well be measured by their social media operation - can they quickly get everyone re-tweeting their stories, as opposed to Sky or BBC reports of the same event?
Hard to keep up with Leon. One day he's AMAZED that we're not all watching the skies for UFOs, because these dozens of videos from the US show mysterious dots. Next day he's CERTAIN that the virus came from a Chinese lab, because a Taiwanese website and a range of Trumpites say so. Today he's CONVINCED that Biden is a paedophile, because he's watched dozens of videos that persuade him.
You need to get out more, mate. Lockdownitis and obsession with stuff on the internet is a thing.
I recommend a walk around back streets of St Johns Wood.
Leon might learn something about his local area.
I walked down Avenue Road (constant stream of traffic and overbuilt houses squatting behind iron gates) and Townsend Road (80% of cars parked were German premium brands) yesterday. Total deprivation.
And did you count the number of council flats ?
Quoting the brand of car is as fallacious as quoting house prices.
People who live in council flats in city centres rarely have cars.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
Personally, I blame the moronic, denialist “lockdown sceptics”.
Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunetra Gupta, Ivor Cummins, Carl Heneghan, Michael Yeadon, and all those who listened to them got their way last autumn as the second wave was building, and we incurred a second wave that dwarfed the first, with hospitals within millimetres of collapsing under the load (I personally know administrators who were being hurriedly briefed to help out on wards, while the health service desperately shuttled ICU patients hundreds of miles up and down the country searching for any spare capacity).
And now Boris is all twitchy about that happening again when there’s actually truly a negligible chance of it. Because he heard “herd immunity”, “cases less severe or not even real”, “no second wave”, and the rest of it before.
Human nature, innit?
"There is no case for extending [lockdown] into July and August – and the economic cost will be crippling."
The only things "locked down" are nightclubs and music festivals, and numerical limits on weddings etc.
Masks and Social Distancing are a different issue to "lockdown".
All of a sudden restrictions far lighter than any in Sweden at any point in the pandemic count as “lockdown.” It’s noticeable and detracts from a real case that can be made.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
Those presenters must be annoyed. They'll be asking for an independent Sage chump next time so they can stay on message about extending lockdown.
Also the 10% Tory lead. Pollster is Survation but I don’t think this one has yet been covered.
Am just waking up this morning so apologies if all of these have already been discussed ad nauseam, but (courtesy of the wonder of Wikipedia) here are all the most recent polls:
SavantaComRes (21-23 May): Con 43, Lab 34 Redfield & Wilton (24 May): Con 43, Lab 33 Survation (25-26 May): Con 43, Lab 33 Number Cruncher Politics (27-28 May): Con 44, Lab 32
So, after that very dramatic set of numbers from YouGov about a week ago, there's clustering around a 10-12pt Conservative lead.
Phew! I thought Labour were in trouble for a minute.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
An hour of their time going to the oval post office is not significant.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
Why is it daft?
Complicated, insecure, administratively onerous and puts an additional burden on volunteers at the polling station
It's simple, and shifts the time burden from those who do not drive (and therefore do not carry driving licenses) to people generally
But you know what: we don't have to theorise, we can actually test.
We can choose a dozen local authorities next year who can run with the photos system. If it turns out to be unduly onerous, then it can be ditched.
And, by the way, that's not the only way to do it. You can (as happens in some US states) set aside the ballots of those who vote without photo ID. In the event the election is close enough that they would have made a difference you can verify then individually.
Charles, you (I suspect) own a car and therefore have a driving license. There is therefore no burden on you. Your life changes not one whit. But for someone who has just turned 18, doesn't drive, and has never traveled abroad, well they now have to jump through hoops (that you don't) to vote.
If there is a way to prevent personation without making it harder for certain demographics to vote, that is the morally right thing to do.
They have to go to a post office with a couple of bits of paperwork and a passport photo. That’s it. It’s not a big hoop.
You mean they have to get a passport photo (from where, and how much?) and some paperwork, then take an afternoon off work to go to the Post Office. It is a bigger hoop than you suggest, and one that will apply only to some people; things might be different if everyone had to acquire a special voter ID card.
I live in a small town. When anyone needs a passport photo....... and the request comes on the local Facebook page every couple of months or so ....... they are advised to go to one of the nearest bigger towns, a bus ride or a car trip (and find a place to park) away.
Comments
But you know what: we don't have to theorise, we can actually test.
We can choose a dozen local authorities next year who can run with the photos system. If it turns out to be unduly onerous, then it can be ditched.
And, by the way, that's not the only way to do it. You can (as happens in some US states) set aside the ballots of those who vote without photo ID. In the event the election is close enough that they would have made a difference you can verify then individually.
Charles, you (I suspect) own a car and therefore have a driving license. There is therefore no burden on you. Your life changes not one whit. But for someone who has just turned 18, doesn't drive, and has never traveled abroad, well they now have to jump through hoops (that you don't) to vote.
If there is a way to prevent personation without making it harder for certain demographics to vote, that is the morally right thing to do.
The problem with starting to extend the vaccination programme well beyond where it is required for the good of public health, is that you potentially set up new criteria against which the overall risks are assessed. Once you start vaccinating the young (on anything other than a PURELY voluntary basis) then you will get people using low take up as a risk factor affecting the country. And there is a potential knock on effect down the line if any stories about adverse impacts start circulating - namely that they start having an impact at the margins on unrelated vaccine programmes that DO matter - MMR etc
I don't think that I could settle there though in the long term. I like things a little more edgy, even in my fifties.
The danger here is of importing American arguments that relate to systems nothing like what would be proposed here - a system where elections are micromanaged by politicians, and areas where opponents live have fewer polling stations which leads of hours of queues. There’s also no chance of having to apply for new ID a for every election, at an office nowhere near public transport that’s only open from 10am to Midday every other Tuesday.
Their view was that by far the best solution was to have polling cards with photos on them that would be used as voting ID.
When there is a big news story I switch on the news but I also fire up my laptop because I know that PB will contain a far wider range of opinions, facts and sources than any single channel and, FWIW I can chuck in my inane thoughts as well and get actual responses from people who are smarter and better informed. No TV channel can compete with that.
The future is not even Youtube. Its interactive.
There are far greater risks (I guess - although I don’t really know what the safeguards are) from people registering fake voters and then using the registrations to cast votes. But i’m Not sure that ID schemes (introduced in such a way that ID requirements are extremely relaxed) would stop that.
How many countries in the world deal with impersonation by taking photos?
I object to any policy that imposes differential burdens.
Although your comment does make me wonder if livestreaming not news but discussion of news programmes might become a thing.
Indeed it seems obviously a better way. There could even be an option to not upload, with those required to produce photo ID on the day.
Toby Young, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunetra Gupta, Ivor Cummins, Carl Heneghan, Michael Yeadon, and all those who listened to them got their way last autumn as the second wave was building, and we incurred a second wave that dwarfed the first, with hospitals within millimetres of collapsing under the load (I personally know administrators who were being hurriedly briefed to help out on wards, while the health service desperately shuttled ICU patients hundreds of miles up and down the country searching for any spare capacity).
And now Boris is all twitchy about that happening again when there’s actually truly a negligible chance of it. Because he heard “herd immunity”, “cases less severe or not even real”, “no second wave”, and the rest of it before.
Human nature, innit?
When they first opened cafes and restaurants in Edinburgh asked you to register your presence electronically. It is really obvious how quickly that is just being abandoned because no one can be bothered. If Sturgeon or Boris keep trying to tell people how to live their lives there is going to be a significant backlash. Boris at least is smart enough to know this and will not try. Guidance maybe, regulation definitely not.
"There is no case for extending [lockdown] into July and August – and the economic cost will be crippling."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/29/consequences-delaying-freedom-day-would-terrible/
Are you confident the justification for vaccinating children en masse against Covid, through emergency authorisations and on the back of limited trial data, is sufficient to potentially jeopardise the reputation of childhood vaccinations in general?
Neither Lab nor Con wants to touch the issue as they are both quite reliant on postal votes. Dealing with a more or less non existent polling station issue is first class substitution activity and diversionary tactics.
*relatives are permitted if needed because of deafness, translation etc, but have to wait outside until the patient is called into the consulting room.
(Incidentally, I have noticed that “lockdown” now seems to equate to “any restrictions”, which implies that Sweden has been in “lockdown” since last March. I doubt that many who hold Sweden up as an example will have noticed the double standard, though).
The problem is that there were swathes of articles and arguments very similar to that in September and October last year. When they were bollocks.
Which means that we’re in the difficult space of arguing, “No, they WERE delusional bollocks then, but NOW they’re correct.” Which may be true, but runs up against some significant heuristics and biases in the human brain. There’s a reason the saying “once bitten, twice shy” exists.
Boris got burned last autumn. And now everyone is saying (again) that the fire is out, just put your hand there again - after proclaiming that it’s irreversible and you won’t ever pull your hand back.
Plus there's been a great exaggeration (from both sides) about what the scientists less convinced about lockdown were saying last autumn.
Plus the Zero Covid scientists have been as wrong as often if not more as the other ones.
Reality is that in a fast moving novel pandemic everyone will get and has got some things wrong.
Some people think the disadvantaged group lean towards Labour, and if Labour supporters can be made less likely to vote, that will help the government that is introducing these measures. However, some Conservatives now worry it will be their own older supporters, and those in red wall seats, whose votes will be suppressed.
School closures and exclusions for covid outbreaks are highly disruptive, and I suspect that immunising Secondary school pupils with Pfizer would get a very high uptake.
I don't think there would be any adverse effect on preschool vaccination rates, indeed the success of Covid-19 vaccinations may well increase uptake of these by demonstrating how protection against infectios disease is an important thing.
There are other benefits too, such as not needing to quarantine when going on holiday to places such as Greece etc.
But the main criteria for decision-making in this will be that those who advocated tighter restrictions in the past were shown to be correct and those who advocated looser ones were wrong.
It’s like political campaigning: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing”. Doesn’t matter what the rights or wrongs of the matter actually are, System 1 has leapt to an answer and it becomes the default state. It can be changed, but it’s an uphill struggle.
The boy who cried “wolf!” was completely correct the final time he shouted it; things were indeed different, but those who heard had already made up their mind.
Boris is insisting on solid and irrefutable proof at every stage, when if he hadn’t been so badly burned, he may well (almost certainly) have been more sanguine.
I’ve seen the exact same thing in risk-takers who have something go badly wrong; they switch to being overcautious.
I tend to watch Youtube videos when eating my lunch. History or videogames, typically (I occasionally watch F1 videos by The Race). The timing works out pretty nicely, doubling up as a short break from work. And I don't need to worry about being a little late or early.
Plus, I don't get shit attempts at humour, or slanted reporting. I don't have a party line regurgitated, or a blind consensus repeated. For more interesting and (if not objective) multiple perspectives on politics I've got PB.
That's not to say TV news is worthless. I think mainstream media, both broadcast and print, has a crucial role to play. But broadcast has thrown overboard a lot of its advantages. When I know the political perspective of a broadcaster (either in terms of channel or presenter) that massively dilutes my trust in them. And I don't watch news because I want to hear shit attempts at humour from a man whose principle job is to read an autocue: it's because I want to learn about events around the world.
If broadcast media focused on getting the basics right, audiences might not be declining quite so much.
Masks and Social Distancing are a different issue to "lockdown".
https://twitter.com/gordonguthrie/status/1398543579866411009?s=21
I mentioned getting news from PB, mostly.
TV advertising is unlikely to cover the whole cost, although it may cover the costs of the TV hosting and satellite fees, which they think is important to the brand to be on TV not just online. They’ll need other revenue sources from somewhere, maybe sponsored segments or scripted ads in online content as the podcasters do.
Ironically, their sucesss as building a brand could well be measured by their social media operation - can they quickly get everyone re-tweeting their stories, as opposed to Sky or BBC reports of the same event?
Quoting the brand of car is as fallacious as quoting house prices.
People who live in council flats in city centres rarely have cars.
It’s noticeable and detracts from a real case that can be made.
https://www.tes.com/news/sqa-assessment-2021-unfair-say-most-teachers-survey
And I thought the disaster the drug addled retards at the DfE had cooked up was bad...