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Post by middleenglander on Nov 27, 2021 12:03:47 GMT
They did well in all the right places. They did less well in either places they'd never win or in safe areas they probably won't lose at a general election. One of their worst results (certainly Labour's best) was in a Tory marginal seat (Morecambe) They already have a massive majority in Nuneaton. Selection of candidates may well have something to do with the result. The Labour candidate lives in the ward whilst the Conservative lives 10 miles away in Heysham. |
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Post by carlton43 on Nov 27, 2021 12:04:08 GMT
Democracy (such as it is and has always been here) is usually in a poor state everywhere in Britain. In places like this people just don't see the point and don't think it will make a difference to them whoever wins or doesn't win and that their vote is of no consequence at all; and to a larger extent than one cares to admit, are they wrong? I often wonder. I welcome your conversion to PR Carlton! Nice try! If only it were that simple. It is not. And it was not the point I wished to make at all. For most people it it not process or even outcomes that matter, but a feeling that the politicians can and will actually do anything different or new or relevant or helpful that in any way relates to them. Even on the small inexpensive but very important to them matter like bin collections, politicians pay not one whit of attention but find money for massive statues, jollies to conferences, twinning with places in Russia, and expensive courses for the staff on racist awareness or gender awareness! The electors correctly assume politicians are a race apart with stupid tosspot agendas of absolutely no reference to them or any ordinary sensible person and ignore them and stop voting because it is a literal waste of time. |
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Post by Peter Wilkinson on Nov 27, 2021 19:24:24 GMT
Yes, it's known as "the ontological argument", and while it's a paraphrase of it, I don't think it's entirely unfair. Most of the non-believers who concentrate on philosophical/theological arguments tend to regard it as their favourite argument for the existence of god, because it's really fun to take apart. Yes, it really is unfair. The core concept of the ontological argument is that the specific properties of God mean that if He exists then He has to exist in every possible world, because if He didn't then He would lack those properties. I'm not convinced that you can get from that core to the actual existence of God, since you have to establish that it is definitely possible that God exists (which is why I agree with you that it's a weak argument). But nobody who actually advocates the argument would agree that your characterisation of it as "God exists because I can conceive of Him" is fair. And if you're describing any argument in a way that nobody who advocates it would think is a fair characterisation then you are, by definition, straw-manning it That's a very (philosophically) weak version of the ontological argument, but it definitely is one. The explanation of necessity as existence (or truth) in every possible world has certainly been the most common one among logicians and philosophers for about the past hundred years, and has some medieval antecedents, but Leibniz was almost the only person to take it seriously between about 1600 and 1900. Descartes and his followers in particular tended to regard necessary truth or existence as amounting to the impossibility of coherently conceiving the opposite, and Davıd Boothroyd 's statement of the ontological argument comes very close to their views (basically, that the fact of being able to conceive of a necessary being meant that it was impossible to coherently to conceive of its non-existence). |
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neilm
Non-Aligned
Posts: 25,023
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Post by neilm on Nov 28, 2021 19:44:35 GMT
re Iain Dale, That's fair, but he has a reputation for inaccuracy which is hardly unjustified. You are being too polite. |
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Post by listener on Nov 29, 2021 14:46:47 GMT
With all the results in, this is another range of low turnouts. 9 of the 13 by-elections (including North Yorkshire PCC) had turnouts below 20% and another 2 with barely more than 20%. The lowest were Basildon (11.2%) and Halton (12.6%).
The highest turnouts were Tunbridge Wells (34.6%) and West Suffolk (26.7%). Maybe the Lib Dem and Green machines came out in support of the Tunbridge Wells Alliance.
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Post by jamesdoyle on Nov 30, 2021 10:06:13 GMT
I have finally (rehearsing and line-learning absolutely hammered my weekend, and yesterday was my wife's birthday) got around to checking these results on my embryonic By-Election good night/bad night calculator, and the results are... interesting. This will almost certainly get rubbished by a few people! I've added some notes to explain after the scores. In descending order:
Lab +48
Grn +47
Con +15
LDm -27
Labour: absolutely hammered in Newcastle, and bad in Nuneaton, but the latter less so because of the Conservative council dominance, and ward history. Other than those two, notmuch was poor - just drops in vote share in Wirral (would they care?) and Tunbridge Wells (ditto). A big positive score in Wigan for the gain from Ind, and a decent result in Lancaster - although just a hold, the relative strengths of Lab and Con gave this more weight. Smaller positive results in Allerdale, Wandsworth and West Suffolk helped to more than offset the aforementioned bad result.s
Grn: obviously the Green scores for losing are all minimised by their lack of history on the wards/councils up this week, so their score is almost entirely based on vote share, with some decent increases, and (mostly) small decreases.
Con: Newcastle and Nuneaton are obviously the headline results, and for the mirror reasons to Labour they get a very good score in the former, and a minor good score in the latter. Almost completely offset by poor results in Lancaster, Tunbridge and Halton.
LibDem: the one ward where the LibDems had any significant interest was a hold, but the score is very low because of their solid history in the ward. Significant drops in voteshare in Hambleton, Halton and Tunbridge (from not having a candidate, obviously), drag them below zero.
All that being said, the score range is very small compared to previous weeks, so it was a bit of a slack water week by this measure, despite five seats changing hands.
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Chris from Brum
Lib Dem
What I need is a strong drink and a peer group.
Posts: 9,732
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Post by Chris from Brum on Nov 30, 2021 10:15:37 GMT
I have finally (rehearsing and line-learning absolutely hammered my weekend, and yesterday was my wife's birthday) got around to checking these results on my embryonic By-Election good night/bad night calculator, and the results are... interesting. This will almost certainly get rubbished by a few people! I've added some notes to explain after the scores. In descending order: Lab +48 Grn +47 Con +15 LDm -27 Labour: absolutely hammered in Newcastle, and bad in Nuneaton, but the latter less so because of the Conservative council dominance, and ward history. Other than those two, notmuch was poor - just drops in vote share in Wirral (would they care?) and Tunbridge Wells (ditto). A big positive score in Wigan for the gain from Ind, and a decent result in Lancaster - although just a hold, the relative strengths of Lab and Con gave this more weight. Smaller positive results in Allerdale, Wandsworth and West Suffolk helped to more than offset the aforementioned bad result.s Grn: obviously the Green scores for losing are all minimised by their lack of history on the wards/councils up this week, so their score is almost entirely based on vote share, with some decent increases, and (mostly) small decreases. Con: Newcastle and Nuneaton are obviously the headline results, and for the mirror reasons to Labour they get a very good score in the former, and a minor good score in the latter. Almost completely offset by poor results in Lancaster, Tunbridge and Halton. LibDem: the one ward where the LibDems had any significant interest was a hold, but the score is very low because of their solid history in the ward. Significant drops in voteshare in Hambleton, Halton and Tunbridge (from not having a candidate, obviously), drag them below zero. All that being said, the score range is very small compared to previous weeks, so it was a bit of a slack water week by this measure, despite five seats changing hands. That's not what middleenglander's tables say. |
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Post by jamesdoyle on Nov 30, 2021 10:19:32 GMT
I have finally (rehearsing and line-learning absolutely hammered my weekend, and yesterday was my wife's birthday) got around to checking these results on my embryonic By-Election good night/bad night calculator, and the results are... interesting. This will almost certainly get rubbished by a few people! I've added some notes to explain after the scores. In descending order: Lab +48 Grn +47 Con +15 LDm -27 Labour: absolutely hammered in Newcastle, and bad in Nuneaton, but the latter less so because of the Conservative council dominance, and ward history. Other than those two, notmuch was poor - just drops in vote share in Wirral (would they care?) and Tunbridge Wells (ditto). A big positive score in Wigan for the gain from Ind, and a decent result in Lancaster - although just a hold, the relative strengths of Lab and Con gave this more weight. Smaller positive results in Allerdale, Wandsworth and West Suffolk helped to more than offset the aforementioned bad result.s Grn: obviously the Green scores for losing are all minimised by their lack of history on the wards/councils up this week, so their score is almost entirely based on vote share, with some decent increases, and (mostly) small decreases. Con: Newcastle and Nuneaton are obviously the headline results, and for the mirror reasons to Labour they get a very good score in the former, and a minor good score in the latter. Almost completely offset by poor results in Lancaster, Tunbridge and Halton. LibDem: the one ward where the LibDems had any significant interest was a hold, but the score is very low because of their solid history in the ward. Significant drops in voteshare in Hambleton, Halton and Tunbridge (from not having a candidate, obviously), drag them below zero. All that being said, the score range is very small compared to previous weeks, so it was a bit of a slack water week by this measure, despite five seats changing hands. That's not what middleenglander 's tables say. Ah, thank you! I had the (past) Green vote in the LibDem column. That neatly reverses the LibDem and Green weekly scores: LDm +44 Grn -23 |
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Post by carlton43 on Nov 30, 2021 15:14:53 GMT
Ah, thank you! I had the (past) Green vote in the LibDem column. That neatly reverses the LibDem and Green weekly scores: LDm +44 Grn -23 There is misinformation, deliberate obfuscation and outright amazing nonsense. This I feel creates a new category way past even that. |
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Post by andrew111 on Dec 1, 2021 15:12:32 GMT
I welcome your conversion to PR Carlton! Nice try! If only it were that simple. It is not. And it was not the point I wished to make at all. For most people it it not process or even outcomes that matter, but a feeling that the politicians can and will actually do anything different or new or relevant or helpful that in any way relates to them. Even on the small inexpensive but very important to them matter like bin collections, politicians pay not one whit of attention but find money for massive statues, jollies to conferences, twinning with places in Russia, and expensive courses for the staff on racist awareness or gender awareness! The electors correctly assume politicians are a race apart with stupid tosspot agendas of absolutely no reference to them or any ordinary sensible person and ignore them and stop voting because it is a literal waste of time. We Lib Dems really are quite good on bin collections and the like (and often criticised for it). There is actually a genuine belief in community politics, although perhaps not as strong as it once was, unfortunately. In the sense of enabling communities and genuinely backing local people rather than only supporting community groups controlled by your Party. (I daresay someone is going to go on about Tower Hamlets now..) |
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Post by carlton43 on Dec 1, 2021 16:31:44 GMT
Nice try! If only it were that simple. It is not. And it was not the point I wished to make at all. For most people it it not process or even outcomes that matter, but a feeling that the politicians can and will actually do anything different or new or relevant or helpful that in any way relates to them. Even on the small inexpensive but very important to them matter like bin collections, politicians pay not one whit of attention but find money for massive statues, jollies to conferences, twinning with places in Russia, and expensive courses for the staff on racist awareness or gender awareness! The electors correctly assume politicians are a race apart with stupid tosspot agendas of absolutely no reference to them or any ordinary sensible person and ignore them and stop voting because it is a literal waste of time. We Lib Dems really are quite good on bin collections and the like (and often criticised for it). There is actually a genuine belief in community politics, although perhaps not as strong as it once was, unfortunately. In the sense of enabling communities and genuinely backing local people rather than only supporting community groups controlled by your Party. (I daresay someone is going to go on about Tower Hamlets now..) Yes. Good points and it is always far too easy to wallow in a little rant or to make cheap tribal points. In local government, so much is predicated on just managing an over-tight budget, largely dictated by central government, who always know best, and permit no substantial regional and district differences. It is all homogenized pap and many of us see the local vote as choosing between degrees of councilor competence and council managerial ability, rather than any meaningful policy differences. With bins, most electors would like to see more frequent collections (in small town Italy our bins were collected every day including Christmas and our street swept twice a day and watered once a day) and know that they will be fobbed off with excuses. They would like the bins handled with care and left where they placed them when full, and perhaps 4-times a year power washed with hot water and disinfectant. They would wish for litter bins to be clean and emptied every day, with street litter swept every day. And that is not much to ask as it is what THEY want and what is IMPORTANT to them, so it ought to be of prime importance and always afforded. In Italy the populace wanted these things and like Britain they were ignored. So they sacked the lot at the next election on a single issue. They did it again on one-way system and street lights and provision of large street bins for excess rubbish from domestic which are also collected daily or twice daily. In Britain we do not get what we want most of the time from local or national government and we have to pay for what they wish to do whether we like it or not. We are a galaxy away from even an inkling of it being in any way close to a democracy of any shape or form. It is an occasional elective oligarchy of those who know what is necessary and what is best and do it anyway whatever the nation wants or prefers. So fewer and fewer see any point in voting at all because the same sort of brain dead administration always wins. The electorate have entirely lost faith in the parties and the politicians. Most people cast a tribal/historic/class/ethnic vote mainly against a group rather than in favour of one. |
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Post by tonyhill on Dec 2, 2021 19:51:23 GMT
This is basically a psephological forum, so I think that jamesdoyle should be congratulated on trying to find new ways of understanding elections and election results.
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