I don't like living in England....

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mikeymo
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by mikeymo »

atoz wrote: 8 May 2021, 7:23pm
markjohnobrien wrote: 8 May 2021, 10:53am
atoz wrote: 8 May 2021, 10:39am The job of a political opposition is to oppose. If they are seeming to agree with the government, why vote for them?

As for blaming Corbyn, he hasn't actually been leader for around 17 months. That won't fly.

When you get people as dissimilar as Adonis and Owen Jones agreeing that Starmer needs to consider his position you know things are bad. Based on that it may be a case of not if but when. And when that happens, goodbye and good riddance.

I used to be a Labour voter. Not any more.
Is that because you want Labour to move more to the left or, conversely, move towards a more Blairite position as these are the current debates splitting the Labour Party asunder.
In the words of the Borg, irrelevant. Starmer is an amateur, and he is a loser. He is a poor communicator, and is surrounded by an echo chamber. Whatever the politics of the man, he isn't going to win a general election, assuming by then the Labour Party is able to fight one. When a right wing politician and a left wing journalist agree on this point you have to take notice.
Who is the "right wing politician" you refer to? It seems to be Lord Adonis. Did the name "Lord Adonis" lead you to make assumptions?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Ad ... ron_Adonis
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661-Pete
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by 661-Pete »

al_yrpal wrote: 8 May 2021, 9:47pm Im pretty sure I am safe Pete. I'm a member of the Ramblers, the National Trust and the U3A. I have a nice piccy of you on an Extinction Rebellion march, I reckon you are a marked man! :lol:
Nice set of middle-class outfits there (if I may say so)! I never joined Ramblers nor the NT, despite being pressed to whenever we visited a NT place. But I kept my U3A membership even though I'm not participating in any groups at the moment (thanks to you-know-what :( ). I felt it would be churlish not to renew.

XR? Haven't heard much from the local group for months - the odd E-mail, that's all. But XR isn't going away. I think you must be referring to the 'playing dead' piccy taken in our local shopping centre.. Wasn't much of a march. The big marches we've been on, in London, were People's Vote, Climate crisis, and anti-Trump. I've no regrets about going, even if not much was achieved. Will there ever be another experience like those in my lifetime? I rather think not.

Sorry, I can't help being all fatalistic at the moment.
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Ride-sleep-repeat
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by Ride-sleep-repeat »

al_yrpal wrote: 8 May 2021, 9:47pm I'm a member of the Ramblers
I would never have guessed............ :wink:
thirdcrank
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by thirdcrank »

I see Tracy Brabin MP has won the election to be the mayor of West Yorkshire. It might be a pyrrhic victory for the Labour Party as it seems she will have to resign her Westminster seat. Boundary changes tend to mean history is no guide, but Tory Elizabeth Peacock was the MP for some 14 years so it's not a Labour safe seat.
mikeymo
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by mikeymo »

thirdcrank wrote: 9 May 2021, 8:04pm I see Tracy Brabin MP has won the election to be the mayor of West Yorkshire. It might be a pyrrhic victory for the Labour Party as it seems she will have to resign her Westminster seat. Boundary changes tend to mean history is no guide, but Tory Elizabeth Peacock was the MP for some 14 years so it's not a Labour safe seat.
Brabin's majority was only 3,500. And Matt Robinson has just been doing a lot of campaigning, and the voters have seen his name on a ballot paper. He got a lot more votes than I imagined. Yup, it's easy to see Batley and Spen returning a Conservative MP in the next few weeks.
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661-Pete
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I don't like living in England....

Post by 661-Pete »

thirdcrank wrote: 9 May 2021, 8:04pm I see Tracy Brabin MP has won the election to be the mayor of West Yorkshire. It might be a pyrrhic victory for the Labour Party as it seems she will have to resign her Westminster seat. Boundary changes tend to mean history is no guide, but Tory Elizabeth Peacock was the MP for some 14 years so it's not a Labour safe seat.
....whereas I now read that the Government (i.e. the Tories) want to change the system for electing mayors, from the current AV system back to 'good old tried-and-tested' FPTP :evil: .

Their reasoning being that it:
could make it easier for Conservatives to win future mayoral contests
.Not quite equal to Trump-style egomania, but close. Actually, I don't see why they don't go the whole hog and make the post hereditary. Create someone 'Duke of London' or whatever, and put him, then his eldest sprog, etc. in charge. Forever....

All this 'democracy' nonsense - let's do away with it....! :roll: :lol:
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ClappedOut
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by ClappedOut »

All parties are dreadful consistently!
mikeymo
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by mikeymo »

From the same article that 661-Pete posted:

"There is evidence that voters are confused by the use of the supplementary vote system. Almost 5% of ballots cast in this year’s mayor of London election were rejected, mainly because voters had voted for too many candidates."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -victories

Yes. I'm a member of a political party, and have done a little bit of party legwork, and was brought up in a highly political family. My childhood was dominated by my father's many election campaigns. But even I didn't understand exactly how the Supplementary Vote* system worked until after I had voted. If I had done I would have voted differently, I think.

*Supplementary Vote is NOT the same as "AV". Even the Guardian manages to get that right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplementary_vote
mikeymo
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by mikeymo »

661-Pete wrote: 9 May 2021, 9:13pm....whereas I now read that the Government (i.e. the Tories) want to change the system for electing mayors, from the current AV system back to 'good old tried-and-tested' FPTP
The system for electing mayors is NOT AV.
Tangled Metal
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by Tangled Metal »

Heard from someone I know from just up the road from Hartlepool today. She commented on the many shots of Starmer visiting Hartlepool. He always dressed down to visit the North East and her view, and those of her friends locally, seemed to be that there was a kind of looking down on those northerners. Comparison with him voting all smart, groomed and in full suit and tie. Down south he dresses like a leader, up norf be dresses down for the locals? She was not surprised Labour lost out when they're led by a condescending southerner. Really don't like him. He's not the leader to turn Labour around. He doesn't relate to voters.

This is anecdotal from one person and her local friends but I can see how it could be part of the issue with Labour right now. Divorced from their old sources of power.
Stevek76
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by Stevek76 »

661-Pete wrote: 9 May 2021, 9:13pm....whereas I now read that the Government (i.e. the Tories) want to change the system for electing mayors, from the current AV system back to 'good old tried-and-tested' FPTP :evil: .

Their reasoning being that it:
could make it easier for Conservatives to win future mayoral contests
.
1) It's not AV. It's AV's poor cousin, SV, where you only get a 1st and 2nd preference. In AV, also known as IRV (instant run off voting), you rank as many candidates as you wish numerically and therefore get 3rd/4th and so on preferences.

2) This backwards step was buried not only in their 2019 manifesto but their 2017 one also.

3) the logic that it would make it easier for conservatives to win is very dubious, it would likely turn all such votes into LAB vs Con only. It would mostly just eliminate lib dem and green chances. To look at the London vote this year is particularly silly as many greens voted for Berry first, safe in the knowledge that they could put Khan as 2nd. If it's fptp, the vast majority will simply be forced to vote khan.

mikeymo wrote: 9 May 2021, 10:08pm "There is evidence that voters are confused by the use of the supplementary vote system. Almost 5% of ballots cast in this year’s mayor of London election were rejected, mainly because voters had voted for too many candidates."
There are ways to sort this without reverting to the backwards and regressive FPTP system. The obvious one is to simply run it as proper IRV/AV. There is no second box to confuse daft people and typically under such systems, if the voter only marks a single candidate with an 'x', that vote is still counted as a first preference. The second consideration is that this year's London ballot was particularly poorly laid out as two columns of candidates rather than a single long list. The double first preference rate in the other metro areas was nowhere near 5%.

The main reason the tories are pursuing such a policy is that they don't like the English public getting to try more proportional voting systems as they don't want to lose FPTP that benefits them so often at westminster. They'd rather keep the public in the dark about better voting systems that given them a greater say beyond picking the least rubbish of two options.
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millimole
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by millimole »

ClappedOut wrote:All parties are dreadful consistently!
That's very simplistic.
But I understand what you are saying.
The main thrust of most campaigning seems to be about retaining or gaming power for its own sake. There is precious little sense of what the 25 year vision is (let alone a 5 or 10 year vision) for how my life, country & society will change if that party gets my vote.
The single exception to this is perhaps the Green manifesto, although even that is very broad brush and hard to relate to the daily lives of my life or that my grandchildren.
Leicester; Riding my Hetchins since 1971; Day rides on my Dawes; Going to the shops on a Decathlon Hoprider
Ben@Forest
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by Ben@Forest »

millimole wrote: 10 May 2021, 7:33am That's very simplistic.
But I understand what you are saying.
The main thrust of most campaigning seems to be about retaining or gaming power for its own sake. There is precious little sense of what the 25 year vision is (let alone a 5 or 10 year vision) for how my life, country & society will change if that party gets my vote.
The single exception to this is perhaps the Green manifesto, although even that is very broad brush and hard to relate to the daily lives of my life or that my grandchildren.
And almost certain to compromise if it gets near real national power. The German Greens may be the biggest party (though probably not by much) in the next German election and will likely be in coalition. They have consistently been against Nord Stream 2, the controversial gas pipeline, though more for green reasons than the political aspects. Will they shut it down if they get into power, l can't see it.....
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661-Pete
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by 661-Pete »

Stevek76 wrote: 9 May 2021, 11:30pm 1) It's not AV. It's AV's poor cousin, SV, where you only get a 1st and 2nd preference. In AV, also known as IRV (instant run off voting), you rank as many candidates as you wish numerically and therefore get 3rd/4th and so on preferences.

2) This backwards step was buried not only in their 2019 manifesto but their 2017 one also.
I didn't clock those details (not being a Londoner myself). But SV is still fairer than FPTP - reversion to the latter is certainly a retrograde step.
Stevek76 wrote: 9 May 2021, 11:30pm 3) the logic that it would make it easier for conservatives to win is very dubious, it would likely turn all such votes into LAB vs Con only. It would mostly just eliminate lib dem and green chances.
Exactly!
Stevek76 wrote: 9 May 2021, 11:30pm The main reason the tories are pursuing such a policy is that they don't like the English public getting to try more proportional voting systems as they don't want to lose FPTP that benefits them so often at westminster. They'd rather keep the public in the dark about better voting systems that given them a greater say beyond picking the least rubbish of two options.
Exactly! (did I say that before?)

I've got this hunch that the Tories fear LibDems and Greens far more than they fear Labour. And with good reason: in the County Council elections LibDems swept the board in our local, leafy Sussex town (Burgess Hill). Pity no Greens got in - but then there wasn't a pact between LD and G like we had in the Town Council elections.

However, Tories still hold the County overall. It'd be interesting to see what AV, or SV, or STV, or any proportional system, might have yielded.

But the 2011 referendum dictated otherwise. Referendums, referendums...... :(
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity.
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
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661-Pete
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Re: I don't like living in England....

Post by 661-Pete »

...and another piece of allegedly electoral tinkering: photo ID at polling stations.

No doubt voter fraud is as widespread here as it was in Biden v. Trump 2020....

....at least, according to Trump, that is. :evil:

I wouldn't have a problem: after all "elderly middle-class me" possesses a passport, a driving licence, and a bus pass. Not everyone is so well equipped.

So how much fraud is there? Why isn't that detail being screamed across all the news networks???
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity.
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
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