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UK - Election 2015

Rum said:
Sadly a high proportion of those who would benefit from Labour staying well left of centre do not appear to vote. Inner Manchester 'working class' areas have turnout as low as 18%.

Another reason not to assume the Tories have a mandate.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32527697 (includes linkls to other data)
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I agree that this is probably a distorting factor to a degree - but probably not by as much as you think, since those sorts of areas tend to return a Labour MP anyhow.

Short of making voting compulsory (and I don't agree with that), I don't know how that problem can be addressed easily. Everyone has the opportunity to vote within a reasonable distance of where they live or work (plus the option of postal voting). Within a decade or so, I can foresee some sort of online voting mechanism, provided that identity verification can be sorted out. Maybe that would boost turnout in general.
 
LondonJohn said:
Within a decade or so, I can foresee some sort of online voting mechanism, provided that identity verification can be sorted out. Maybe that would boost turnout in general.
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As can I, but I hope that it isn't so. As aware as I am of the danger of predicting the future, particularly where technology is concerned, I cannot foresee an online system of voting that isn't open to massive abuse in various forms. I think we've probably just about got the best system we could in the way we do things now.
 
Rat said:
As can I, but I hope that it isn't so. As aware as I am of the danger of predicting the future, particularly where technology is concerned, I cannot foresee an online system of voting that isn't open to massive abuse in various forms. I think we've probably just about got the best system we could in the way we do things now.
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I agree and even if it wasn't actually open to abuse* a system needs to be transparent and obviously fair. Ballot counting works on these requirements. Any online system that has sufficient checks to prevent most abuse will be beyond the ken of the vast majority of people, possibly the majority of IT specialists.


*which is probably not going to happen - a system always has faults. There are several examples in the US of systems not doing what they should.

ETA: as far as the needs to be seen to be fair, there is this infamous video, for example

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...ine-switches-vote-obama-romney_n_2083015.html
 
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LondonJohn said:
I can indeed argue that, since I argue that the income ratio is improperly distorted by the expenditure imbalance.

To put it another way, one could simply apply a correcting factor to income to account for this distortion. Or one could simply compare for people living within their means.

The distortion factor renders the raw results somewhat moot: if a household with £10k disposable income spends £15k, then of course that household is likely to spend a much higher proportion of its "£10k income" on VAT.

Indeed, it would be statistically (and philosophically) correct to say that where poorer households are spending more than their nominal net income, one should in fact add the amount of debt to this income figure. (And that's without even considering* the fact that wealthier people save far more proportionately than poorer people, which again distorts the "nominal net income" ratio).

* Not that this should be considered in the comparison of course - I'm just articulating it as a factor.
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Total tripe. Your arguement is: if the poor were not poor and had loads of money so that their expenditure was a similar proportion of their income as the rich then VAT would not be regressive.
The obvious failing is the fact that the poor are poor. There are only two things you can do wirh money spend it or save it. Those who save spend a lower proportion than those who don't. The poor tend not to save, many do borrow. That fact can not simply be ignored if we are talking about the real effect of VAT increases.

Edited to add, there are factors which mean VAT is not regressive but at its most basic level it is.
 
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Rum said:
Sadly a high proportion of those who would benefit from Labour staying well left of centre do not appear to vote. Inner Manchester 'working class' areas have turnout as low as 18%.

Another reason not to assume the Tories have a mandate.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32527697 (includes linkls to other data)
Click to expand...


If the civil servant quoted really does teach his kids not to vote then I really think that's disgusting. I've also always thought that spoiling ballot papers is a silly idea. On the other hand, if all the non voters went out and voted for local independent or protest (joke) candidates there would be enough in many of these constituencies to unseat the big party candidates, that's the kind of action that would make the party leaders listen.
 
Rat said:
No, what I mean is that you will not have much luck getting money out of the Democratic Unionist Party. Although after a brief period of epilepsy in my late teens, I sympathise very much with your experience, and am grateful that mine passed eventually.
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I think my spell checker has been playing Darth Vader. I'm Scottish,im a SNP party member. When I wrote DWP(dep,work and pensions) it changed it to dup-it just did it again,OK I think I've fixed it.
 
skeptichaggis said:
I think my spell checker has been playing Darth Vader. I'm Scottish,im a SNP party member. When I wrote DWP(dep,work and pensions) it changed it to dup-it just did it again,OK I think I've fixed it.
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I can just see it. Someone applies for benefits and gets the answer, "Noy"
 
anglolawyer said:
As brought into being by the English Civil War, an uprising of the people.

If you think the English civil war- which actually started mainly as a product of sectariaism in Ireland and scotland-was a uprising of "the people",I assure you,you are wrong. Any attempt to remove the British civil wars from the larger,more complex set of religious wars in the first half of the seventeenth century is doomed to failure.
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skeptichaggis said:
anglolawyer said:
As brought into being by the English Civil War, an uprising of the people.
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If you think the English civil war- which actually started mainly as a product of sectariaism in Ireland and scotland-was a uprising of "the people",I assure you,you are wrong. Any attempt to remove the British civil wars from the larger,more complex set of religious wars in the first half of the seventeenth century is doomed to failure.
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Funny then that its principal result was a transition to the constitutional monarchy we still have now.
 
anglolawyer said:
Funny then that its principal result was a transition to the constitutional monarchy we still have now.
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That result doesn't mean that it originated as a rising of the people, although a case can be made that it did. The population of Scotland, except Catholics and the city of Aberdeen, rebelled against an assertion of episcopacy and the imposition of a Prayer Book on the Church of Scotland by Charles I.
 
617cb24dec7e6a59dac42fc7a3a62518.jpg
Interesting comparison
 
skeptichaggis said:
anglolawyer said:
As brought into being by the English Civil War, an uprising of the people.
Click to expand...

If you think the English civil war- which actually started mainly as a product of sectariaism in Ireland and scotland-was a uprising of "the people",I assure you,you are wrong. Any attempt to remove the British civil wars from the larger,more complex set of religious wars in the first half of the seventeenth century is doomed to failure.
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Indeed, the 17th Century in Europe was a mess. England, Ireland and Scotland were also tied up in this too.
 
jimbob said:
Indeed, the 17th Century in Europe was a mess. England, Ireland and Scotland were also tied up in this too.
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That's why the thing is now usually called the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, because it broke out in Scotland and Ireland (separate processes) and only later spread to England.
 
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Rincewind said:
Yes - fascinating!

Maybe the Labour Party need to fund the search for coal all over Southern/Eastern England?
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In Scotland the Labour Party wasn't simply pushed back into its ex-coal mining strongholds. Even these were overwhelmed, and the last Lab MP represents a very prosperous part of Edinburgh. I drew attention to this phenomenon in a post well before the election. Areas with big Labour majorities were left wing, and it was in these localities that Scottish Labour was most vulnerable. So big majority and small majority constituencies were equally at risk. Almost the entire Scottish Labour "habitat" has been overrun by a different and competing organism. This is indeed an extinction-level event.
 
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