UK - December 2019 General Election

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I am not missing the point, it's just that you repeatedly asserting it isn't convincing me.

Given that i have stated again and again that i dont buy the old canard that if you dont vote you don't get to complain you have so far failed to give any justification for it.

I know it's one of those things that seems like it makes sense, but it really doesn't. The people who dont get to complain are the people who voted FOR the ********.

I think you are missing the point, since you quoted a post in which I explicated the point I was making in that particular conversation strand, and then spent the entire reply talking about something completely different.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Deary me, it's like the last 2 days never happened. All of this has been dealt with.

If by "dealt-with" you mean "hand-waved away without offering any counter-argument or addressing it at all", then sure.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

One Conservative candidate is in hot water for saying on Facebook what doubtless many Tories think or say in private:



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-50283520

I don't think she's thought it through. The Tories need an underclass.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Archie, let me put it this way, and please don't see this as being argumentative, but as a genuine attempt to get you to re-examine the arguments that you've put forth:

You argue from the position that the only significant outcome of an election is who wins, but you yourself are basing your decision not to vote on an outcome of the election other than who won - namely by what percentage they won. You also argue that no individual vote matters and therefore it's wrong to dismiss the opinions of those who choose not to vote, yet you also argue that it is okay to dismiss the opinions of those who voted Conservative even though those people also only have one individual vote each.

Your position is not logically consistent.

Further to the "no vote can impact an election" argument, does this imply that you would be perfectly fine with someone forging your identity and voting Conservative on your behalf? Does it not also imply that you could have no objection to specific groups being denied the vote based on, say, their skin colour? I'll expand a little on that last point, because it is relevant to two arguments you've made.

Firstly, let's say for the sake of argument that in your constituency there is an ethnic group of UK immigrant citizens, who make up 1% of your constituency's population. You've argued that the 25% of the population who chose not to vote can't make a difference. If 25% of the population can't make a difference, then 1% certainly can't. Therefore it can't matter if their right to vote is taken away.

Secondly, while here we're talking about a group rather than an individual, what is a group of people other than a collection of individuals? Your single vote is also part of a larger group. If your vote doesn't matter, then why do these individuals' votes matter?

I don't believe you really think that individual votes don't matter, and I don't believe you really think that a small percentage of votes don't matter. I just think that you haven't really thought it through.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Archie, let me put it this way, and please don't see this as being argumentative, but as a genuine attempt to get you to re-examine the arguments that you've put forth:

You argue from the position that the only significant outcome of an election is who wins,

No, let's stop right there. That's not what I am saying. This and other things is what people are extrapolating into what I am saying. What I AM saying are two separate things.

1. In some seats the position is such that voting is an entirely futile gesture especially for a minor party and that being the case it genuinely makes no difference if an individual votes or not. And further if the choice is between voting for someone you actively dislike or not voting at all it is very understandable that people would opt for the latter.

2. A person choosing not to vote and then complaining that other people vote for something awful is not necessarily being hypocritical as the two things can be completely unconnected given 1 above.

but you yourself are basing your decision not to vote on an outcome of the election other than who won - namely by what percentage they won.

Well look I voted last time and it hasn't made me more or less likely to vote this time and had I not voted nobody would have noticed. So yes my individual vote didn't matter. At all. To anyone.

You also argue that no individual vote matters and therefore it's wrong to dismiss the opinions of those who choose not to vote, yet you also argue that it is okay to dismiss the opinions of those who voted Conservative even though those people also only have one individual vote each.

Nope. And yes. Because when you ask for something you don't get to complain when you get it. If you choose the biggest, wettest, smelliest turd to eat don't complain that you have **** on your lips.

Your position is not logically consistent.

It is.

Further to the "no vote can impact an election" argument, does this imply that you would be perfectly fine with someone forging your identity and voting Conservative on your behalf? Does it not also imply that you could have no objection to specific groups being denied the vote based on, say, their skin colour? I'll expand a little on that last point, because it is relevant to two arguments you've made.

I wouldn't actually care if someone stole my vote and voted Tory with it if it was purely 1 vote. I would care that it was part of a bigger thing that could influence elections. I would care if specific groups were denied the vote because those groups in aggregate can influence elections in certain constituencies. I would care if those groups were disenfranchised in non-marginal constituencies because it would be racist and awful and it shouldn't be allowed to get a foothold where it might affect elections. But I wouldn't object on the grounds that it would influence the election result around here if black people weren't allowed to vote because it wouldn't.

Firstly, let's say for the sake of argument that in your constituency there is an ethnic group of UK immigrant citizens, who make up 1% of your constituency's population. You've argued that the 25% of the population who chose not to vote can't make a difference.

No, I haven't! I have argued they can't make a difference when the incumbent has a 45% lead.

If 25% of the population can't make a difference, then 1% certainly can't. Therefore it can't matter if their right to vote is taken away.

It can matter in areas where the gap isn't 45% and it can matter for reasons other than affecting the election result.

Secondly, while here we're talking about a group rather than an individual, what is a group of people other than a collection of individuals? Your single vote is also part of a larger group. If your vote doesn't matter, then why do these individuals' votes matter?

I don't think you really need an answer to that question. But let's take a hypothetical. Let's say a constituency has 100,000 people. 60,000 people vote for Party A who say all black people should be deported immediately, 39,000 vote for a party who say that black people should be shot on sight. There are 1,000 black people who can either vote for Party A, Party B or not vote.

I argue that 1) it is completely understandable if they choose not to vote for A or B and shouldn't then have no right to complain about being deported when A win, or that 60,000 people voted for them to be deported. 2) That whether they vote or not is not going to change anything on this occasion and if anything them voting is probably working against their own interests.

Your argument appears to be that 1) Black people should vote either to be deported or shot 2) If they don't vote we should ignore their complaints 3) People who voted for black people to be shot deserve more respect than black people who didn't vote to be deported or shot because at least they voted.

Which on the face of it seems ridiculous.

I don't believe you really think that individual votes don't matter, and I don't believe you really think that a small percentage of votes don't matter. I just think that you haven't really thought it through.

I think what you are missing is context. The argument is not about whether votes matter or not, it's that whether people vote or not they have every right to complain about horrible policies voted for by the majority that they couldn't have overturned had they voted anyway. Its just another excuse to ignore people's legitimate complaints.

 

[Nessie]

I have never voted for the winning candidate in a general election (that is likely to change with this election). I have always lived in safe seats (for various different parties).

The way I see it is, even though I voted for parties unlikely to get locally elected, the overall vote is still important because

1 - if there is a rise in a local vote, next time around, that party may consider it worth putting more resources into fighting for that seat
2 - miracles do happen
3 - the overall vote for each party is still important. The Greens get one MP, but they get a big vote so when it comes to the media, their voice is still heard.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

No, let's stop right there. That's not what I am saying.

You have argued that a single vote in your constituency can't have an effect on, as you put it, "the OUTCOME", and you have dismissed out of hand the argument that voting makes a difference even if you know you're going to lose because the percentage by which someone wins is significant - even going so far as to dismiss the significance of reducing a win by 42% to a win by 10%.

So for the sake of clarity can you explain exactly what, other than who is elected, you think is a significant outcome?

Well look I voted last time and it hasn't made me more or less likely to vote this time and had I not voted nobody would have noticed. So yes my individual vote didn't matter. At all. To anyone.

You are again pretending not to understand how elections work. Everybody who voted in the last election could say that their individual vote didn't matter. At all. To anyone.

Nope. And yes. Because when you ask for something you don't get to complain when you get it. If you choose the biggest, wettest, smelliest turd to eat don't complain that you have **** on your lips.

And if you don't oppose something you don't get to complain when you get it. If you passively sit by while someone feeds you a turd you don't complain that you have **** on your lips.

I wouldn't actually care if someone stole my vote and voted Tory with it if it was purely 1 vote. I would care that it was part of a bigger thing that could influence elections.

What, exactly, do you think a single vote is, if not "part of a bigger thing that could influence elections"?

No, I haven't! I have argued they can't make a difference when the incumbent has a 45% lead.

I said "in your constituency". Twice, in fact, in the two sentences you just quoted.

It can matter in areas where the gap isn't 45% and it can matter for reasons other than affecting the election result.

Fair enough.

I don't think you really need an answer to that question. But let's take a hypothetical. Let's say a constituency has 100,000 people. 60,000 people vote for Party A who say all black people should be deported immediately, 39,000 vote for a party who say that black people should be shot on sight. There are 1,000 black people who can either vote for Party A, Party B or not vote.

I argue that 1) it is completely understandable if they choose not to vote for A or B and shouldn't then have no right to complain about being deported when A win, or that 60,000 people voted for them to be deported. 2) That whether they vote or not is not going to change anything on this occasion and if anything them voting is probably working against their own interests.

Your argument appears to be that 1) Black people should vote either to be deported or shot 2) If they don't vote we should ignore their complaints 3) People who voted for black people to be shot deserve more respect than black people who didn't vote to be deported or shot because at least they voted.

Which on the face of it seems ridiculous.

In that particular scenario, I can't imagine why the black people wouldn't vote to be deported. In the society where those viewpoints are that mainstream both amongst the general public and the political establishment, wouldn't leaving the country be a good thing? The only way I could see not voting being a positive move in that context would be if you don't vote because by the time the election has rolled around you've already left the country of your own accord.

And even so, the the choice really was between those two extremes, why wouldn't you vote for the option that is less likely to get you killed? Even if there's only a very tiny chance that you'll win? Even if you know that you'll end up getting killed but perhaps the next generation might survive? Why would you passively sit around and let everybody other than you have a say in whether you live or die?

I think what you are missing is context. The argument is not about whether votes matter or not, it's that whether people vote or not they have every right to complain about horrible policies voted for by the majority that they couldn't have overturned had they voted anyway. Its just another excuse to ignore people's legitimate complaints.

Why do you think I'm looking for an excuse to ignore people's complaints?

I would say that complaints from people are more worthy of being taken seriously if those people are actually doing something about what they're complaining about. As opposed to choosing to complain about the result in lieu of choosing to affect the result - no matter how minor that effect is. As opposed to trying to have a say in an arena where it can't make any difference, after choosing not to have a say in the arena where it can make a difference - albeit a very small difference.

 

[Rolfe]

I have never voted for the winning candidate in a general election.

Neither have I! (Well I'm a bit hazy about what I did with my first ever vote in 1974 but I don't think I did.)

For many many years I voted in Motherwell and Wishaw, which was a seat where they simply weighed the Labour vote. I remember in about 1987 having an argument with my mother about the whole "wasted vote" thing. It went like this.

Mum: Are you really coming all this way just to vote SNP? (I was living in Hertfordshire at the time.)
Me: Well I'm certainly not coming all this way to vote for any of the others, I could do that in Hatfield.
Mum: But they say it's a wasted vote.
Me: So? Are you going to vote Labour?
Mum (basic socialist principles but utterly scunnered by the corruption and nepotism of the local Labour party): No!!!
Me: So who are you going to vote for then?
Mum: Well I thought I'd give the LibDems a try.
Me (trying to smother the sarcasm): So you think their candidate is in with a chance?
Mum (realistically): No.
Me: Well in what way is your LibDem vote less of a wasted vote than my SNP one?
Mum: Er, um.
Me: Here's how I see it. We all know who's going to win here. If you think your vote is wasted unless it goes to the winning candidate then you have to vote Labour. Which neither of us is prepared to do. So given that, I'm going to do the only thing I can do with my vote which is give it to the party I support, the party I want to win, so that when they announce all the final tallies of votes at the end of it all, mine is in the tally of the party I support.

Outcome? Mum came to meet me at the station on the Thursday evening wearing a tartan skirt, and she had already persuaded two neighbours to vote SNP with the same argument. And indeed in that election the SNP did go from a poor fourth to second place in the constituency (although still a long way behind Labour). She voted a straight SNP ticket all her life after that, and lived to see the 2011 landslide for Holyrood.

Fast forward to 2006 and I physically moved back to the house my vote had been registered in all these years. But another move was on the cards and just before the 2007 Holyrood election I moved (with mother) to Peeblesshire. The SNP didn't win that constituency seat on that occasion, but it did win it in 2011 (the year of the big landslide).

The 2010 Westminster election was situation normal, except that now I was voting in a safe Conservative seat rather than a safe Labour one. I was at the count in Dumfries getting slightly sozzled when we came fourth. Story of my life.

But then in 2015, big upset. My old constituency turned yellow with a vengeance and went SNP. The SNP MP held the seat in 2017 and is tipped to hold it again next month. Meanwhile I'm still stuck with never having voted for an MP who has won their seat, even though we did get within 800 votes in 2015. I don't suppose 2019 is going to be the year that changes either. Sucks to be me.

 

[Rolfe]

But the point of that is that even though I know the candidate doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell (OK that's not actually true this time, I think she has a slight chance), I do have someone to vote for whose party I don't utterly despise. I don't blame anyone in a safe seat not wanting to put their vote into the final tally of a party they utterly despise just because they despise the others even more.

 

[Nessie]

But the point of that is that even though I know the candidate doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell (OK that's not actually true this time, I think she has a slight chance), I do have someone to vote for whose party I don't utterly despise. I don't blame anyone in a safe seat not wanting to put their vote into the final tally of a party they utterly despise just because they despise the others even more.

You think that the SNP may not win a seat in Scotland? I think it will be a yellow wash and the SNP will return all Scottish MPs. The Lib Dems may still get their seat, up north, where candidate is as important as party.

If Ruth Davidson had remained Scottish Tory leader, that may not have been the case. Labour are done for.

 

[catsmate]

I would just to point out (primus) that several UK Westminster elections have been one vote, e.g. Henry Duke and John Addison. Many more have been decided by a handful of votes.
Secundus, if other people follow the whining of "my one vote doesn't count", then the system rather falls apart.
Ultimus, voting should be compulsory and non-voting a criminal offense.

 

[Rolfe]

You think that the SNP may not win a seat in Scotland? I think it will be a yellow wash and the SNP will return all Scottish MPs. The Lib Dems may still get their seat, up north, where candidate is as important as party.

If Ruth Davidson had remained Scottish Tory leader, that may not have been the case. Labour are done for.

There are several seats which might be out of reach for the SNP next month. Bear in mind there were three the party didn't get even at the black-swan high water mark of 2015, and ours was one of them.

 

[psionl0]

Exactly, plus if everyone voted then the overall proportion of votes across the country may well highlight the problem with FPTP and strengthen the argument for a (proper) PR system.

I live in one of the safest Labour seats in the country and rarely vote Labour but I always vote - if nothing else I helped a candidate I agreed with, save their deposit last time. We have never told our kids who to vote for but impressed on them the importance of voting. Personally I think we should have the Australian system and it be compulsory.

Curiously, this was rejected 2:1 at the 2011 referendum (even without the compulsory aspect). It must have been a BAD yes campaign.

Considering that the UK is effectively a unicameral state (the House of Lords has no real power), I would say that New Zealand's MMP system would be more appropriate. You might never have anybody other than a Labour rep in your seat but your party vote will count.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

In that particular scenario, I can't imagine why the black people wouldn't vote to be deported...

Then we are never going to agree and I think your viewpoint is frankly ridiculous. This sums up exactly the attitude that I dislike about the kind of people who use that old canard and why things will never change in this country.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I would say that complaints from people are more worthy of being taken seriously if those people are actually doing something about what they're complaining about. .

Including actively supporting it and making it happen apparently. Which again is frankly ridiculous.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I would just to point out (primus) that several UK Westminster elections have been one vote, e.g. Henry Duke and John Addison. Many more have been decided by a handful of votes.

The vast majority haven't and I am willing to be none of these returned 60-odd percent for one candidate 2 years previously

Secundus, if other people follow the whining of "my one vote doesn't count", then the system rather falls apart.

You say that as if the system falling apart would be a bad thing but it wouldn't because people will still vote and I haven't EVER said they shouldn't.

Ultimus, voting should be compulsory and non-voting a criminal offense.

No, it shouldn't.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

And just to address the questions earlier about 'what else than outcome' I have said I am going to vote Green because I think a healthy green vote would be a good thing even if it doesn't affect the election of MPs. For several reasons including influencing other party policy and demonstrating the flaws of FPTP.

What I am not prepared to do is lend my vote to Labour to use it as a justification for Brexit or Lib Dem to use it as a justification for branding me the same as Farage and opposing Scottish Independence.

I could lend it to an Independent MP but that would literally be a completely pointless and futile gesture because voting for an Independent who doesn't win is a giant waste of everyone's time.

 

[dudalb]

Farage is not going to stand in the election.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/election-2019-50278984

"Speaking about his decision not to stand in December's poll, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage says he thought "very hard" about "how to serve the cause of Brexit best".

"I don't want to be in politics for the rest of my life," he says.

But he says he will be going out "across the country" with the Brexit Party's message.

He also says he has been wanting to form a "Leave alliance" for months, adding: "I still hope and pray it happens, but it doesn't look like it will."

I really think Farage prefers being a big fish in a small pond then a small fish in a big pond.
He is also finding out that he has served his political purpose, and now the powers that be in the Tory party considers him a expendable liability.

 

[Andy_Ross]

On Radio 4 'This Morning'

Gove is asked if the report on Russian interference with Brexit is going to be published before the election.

His answer is that he knows nothing about a report and Corbyn is the threat to our security.

 

[The Don]

I really think Farage prefers being a big fish in a small pond then a small fish in a big pond.
He is also finding out that he has served his political purpose, and now the powers that be in the Tory party considers him a expendable liability.

I agree. I think he wants money and influence but doesn't really want any power because that would require work and if his tenure as an MEP has shown anything, it's an aversion to hard work.

IMO Nigel Farage's ideal role would be as some kind of Czar (maybe Brexit Czar) where subordinates do all the work (and carry the can in the event of the inevitable **** ups) and he gets to swan about on a great salary and generous expense account. He can meet with mates like President Trump and be feted by them and then ultimately parlay it all into a high paying set of directorships and/or consultancy posts.

What he absolutely does not want is to be an MP having to work hard for an MP's salary and a junior ministerialship where he has actual accountability.