UK General Election

Agatha said:
What's the alternative? Doing nothing by not voting? At least if you spoil your paper the candidates get to see your paper.
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Having been at a count, no they don't. The spoiled papers are just piled up together and no one but those counting, the overseers and maybe a candidate if they happen to walk past when your vote is counted will see it. I informed the ukip candidate that one of his votes was rendered void because someone covered it in BNP stickers. Otherwise he wouldn't have had a clue.
 
At the counts I've been to, the candidates and their agents were invited to inspect the spoiled ballots with the returning officer so they could object to any decision they felt was wrong. There's usually quite a lot of jocular banter about what's said on some of those papers.

At my own count when I stood in a council by-election the spoiled and doubtful papers were projected on a screen so everyone could see and agree with how they were counted. This was a count by STV so of course it was electronic and they scanned the paper ballots in. One joker simply scrawled something across his paper that would be edited out by the autocensor here, and everybody burst out laughing when the scan appeared on the screen.
 
I see the Tories have lost their Isle of Wight candidate after he described homosexuality as a danger to society. Where do they dig these people up from?
 
Whenever I've been to a count the candidates are invited to look at the spoiled papers, and they always have done (if just for the laughs).
 
Don't recall them doing it in the one I was at but I bow to your superior experience.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Apparently my constituency is 97% chance of Tory. Disenfranchised again then. Is there an ISIS candidate i can vote for instead?
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P.J. Denyer said:
My consistuency has returned a Tory every time since the 1920's. Even bothering to go and vote seems pointless, I do though as otherwise it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as the voters for other parties give up, turn out is abysmal as it is.
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I wish that people didn't use the term "disenfranchised" to mean, "the rest of the electorate disagrees with me".
 
Labour's latest election wheeze is to promise 10,000 extra "bobbies on the beat". How times have changed, back when I joined the Labour Party in the early 1980s, any party promising an increase in numbers would have been accused of starting to set up a police state.

Now Labour are going to use the money (or re-use depending on who you believe) that won't be used to reduce capital gains tax (which, given the threshold, is only going to help the wealthy) to provide 10,000 extra bobbies on the beat - nevermind that bobbies on the beat are by and large a waste of police manpower.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39775693
 
angrysoba said:
I wish that people didn't use the term "disenfranchised" to mean, "the rest of the electorate disagrees with me".
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I use it to mean no point in voting as my vote won't get me any representation.

And by rest you mean 30-40% of course. Or as low as 25% at the last election.
 
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angrysoba said:
I wish that people didn't use the term "disenfranchised" to mean, "the rest of the electorate disagrees with me".
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Indeed. Standard practice for those who are aggrieved the world doesn't see things the same way as them.
 
Did anyone hear Diane Abbott's cringe-worthy meltdown on LBC? It's awful to listen to. Only the thick-skinned will get to the end. So bad I almost felt sorry for her. Then I remembered who she worked for.......
 
Information Analyst said:
Your MP is still your MP. When I asked my MP to raise a question in Parliament, he did so without me telling him I didn't vote for him, and without him asking me if I did.
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Yeah great. That and a pound fifty will get me a cup of coffee.

Sadly my MP will be a homeopathy loving Brexiteer so while he will be my MP I doubt he's going to be working in my best interests on... oh... just about anything.

I'm not quite sure where your logic takes us. Presumably an MP nobody voted for would still be our MP as well? Our dictator would be our dictator.
 
MikeG said:
Indeed. Standard practice for those who are aggrieved the world doesn't see things the same way as them.
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Another person who can't tell the difference between 'everyone' and '35% of the people who voted'.

Still he's probably alright Jack so why should he give a hoot what anyone other than the majority think about anything. They'll be letting brown people vote next and banning Christmas!
 
MikeG said:
Did anyone hear Diane Abbott's cringe-worthy meltdown on LBC? It's awful to listen to. Only the thick-skinned will get to the end. So bad I almost felt sorry for her. Then I remembered who she worked for.......
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Not just works for, but is a trusted confidante of. She is one of the most incompetent and downright brain-shy MPs ever to have served, and when you add to that the fact she is arrogant and overpoweringly condescending it really is shocking that she is entrusted with any authority whatsoever.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
I use it to mean no point in voting as my vote won't get me any representation.
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You mean that you use the word incorrectly.

As it happens, I am literally disenfranchised. I used to have a vote in the UK, but I am no longer eligible to do so. That is what disenfranchised means.

Archie Gemmill Goal said:
And by rest you mean 30-40% of course. Or as low as 25% at the last election.
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Now, you make even less sense. You are now complaining that hardly anyone disagrees with you whereas before you were complaining that the odds were stacked against you. Are you instead arguing that the problem is that too many people actually agree with you that their vote is worthless and are therefore proving it by not casting it?

Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Apparently my constituency is 97% chance of Tory. Disenfranchised again then. Is there an ISIS candidate i can vote for instead?
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Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Yeah great. That and a pound fifty will get me a cup of coffee.

Sadly my MP will be a homeopathy loving Brexiteer so while he will be my MP I doubt he's going to be working in my best interests on... oh... just about anything.

I'm not quite sure where your logic takes us. Presumably an MP nobody voted for would still be our MP as well? Our dictator would be our dictator.
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You said: "I use it to mean no point in voting as my vote won't get me any representation."

You do get representation, even if it's not the person you voted for.
 
Information Analyst said:
You said: "I use it to mean no point in voting as my vote won't get me any representation."

You do get representation, even if it's not the person you voted for.
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Yeah because when my MP says 'we think leaving the EU is a good idea' that's 'representation' even though it's not my view and I 100% disagree with it. Right.

I look forward to the time when you are accused of a crime and your legal representation says 'yeah, he totally done it. He says he doesn't but he's lying' because that would be 'representation' in your book.
 
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