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Post by greenchristian on May 31, 2018 17:42:56 GMT
I recall quite a bit of change pushed through in the Labour years without consensus and even Jack Straw conceded this once in opposition. It's strange how the expectations are one thing for Labour and another for Conservatives. The constitutional changes that Labour pushed through were the introduction of devolved government in areas that voted for it, and removing most of the hereditary peers. I don't recall the Tories claiming that any of these changes amounted to changing the rules for partisan advantage. |
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ricmk
Lib Dem
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Post by ricmk on May 31, 2018 18:19:32 GMT
I recall quite a bit of change pushed through in the Labour years without consensus and even Jack Straw conceded this once in opposition. It's strange how the expectations are one thing for Labour and another for Conservatives. Interesting. Could you expand on that - what sort of changes are you referring to? Any references? I always try to be fair (even if it just means saying the big two are both terrible) but it did seem to me that the Tories were the ones to break the mould - keen to be corrected if it's not as simple as that. |
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Post by justin124 on May 31, 2018 19:46:14 GMT
If this review is stopped, there won't be time to conduct a new one with the public consultation period Labour always demand happen before the next election. Best to get the 600 seats in place, get them fought in 2022, then start a new process. I am not sure that it is too late to carry out a further Review to be in place for May 2022. Were it to get under way this Autumn . three and a half years should be more than sufficient.Moreover, Theresa May can be reasonably criticised for not abandoning the current review in the immediate aftermath of the 2017 election. |
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Post by justin124 on May 31, 2018 19:48:18 GMT
I recall quite a bit of change pushed through in the Labour years without consensus and even Jack Straw conceded this once in opposition. It's strange how the expectations are one thing for Labour and another for Conservatives. The constitutional changes that Labour pushed through were the introduction of devolved government in areas that voted for it, and removing most of the hereditary peers. I don't recall the Tories claiming that any of these changes amounted to changing the rules for partisan advantage. Though in the case of Wales , there was a strong case for a recount - ie 50.3% to 49.7%. |
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Post by timrollpickering on May 31, 2018 19:49:33 GMT
I recall quite a bit of change pushed through in the Labour years without consensus and even Jack Straw conceded this once in opposition. It's strange how the expectations are one thing for Labour and another for Conservatives. Interesting. Could you expand on that - what sort of changes are you referring to? Any references? I always try to be fair (even if it just means saying the big two are both terrible) but it did seem to me that the Tories were the ones to break the mould - keen to be corrected if it's not as simple as that. Well one that springs immediately to mind is the switch to party lists, and closed ones at that, for the European Parliament (sorry not got Straw's confession in Hansard to hand). And some of the detail such as postal votes on demand, to say nothing of all post ballots, provoked some fierce exchanges rather than consensual agreement. |
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Post by timrollpickering on May 31, 2018 19:54:15 GMT
The constitutional changes that Labour pushed through were the introduction of devolved government in areas that voted for it, and removing most of the hereditary peers. I don't recall the Tories claiming that any of these changes amounted to changing the rules for partisan advantage. Though in the case of Wales , there was a strong case for a recount - ie 50.3% to 49.7%. However in 1997 to raise this was to be treated as beyond contempt. Nobody talked of "the 50%" or "the 75%" or "the 81%", or went looking for regretful Yes voters. It was nothing like more recent referendums. |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on May 31, 2018 19:58:04 GMT
It was often argued in 1997 that the reason for the lukewarm 'Yes' vote was that what was on offer was insufficiently powerful to enthuse voters, and there may well have been something in that.
In any case while the 0.6% margin may seem narrow, it isn't actually knife-edge. There would have had to have been a major miscount to reverse a 6,721 vote margin. There were no serious calls for a recount that I remember.
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Post by justin124 on May 31, 2018 21:04:27 GMT
It was often argued in 1997 that the reason for the lukewarm 'Yes' vote was that what was on offer was insufficiently powerful to enthuse voters, and there may well have been something in that. In any case while the 0.6% margin may seem narrow, it isn't actually knife-edge. There would have had to have been a major miscount to reverse a 6,721 vote margin. There were no serious calls for a recount that I remember. Indeed there was not - and that did surprise me at the time. A margin of 0.6% is the equivalent of a lead of circa 300 votes or so in a parliamentary constituency - and majotities of that size have resulted in full recounts in the past with some producing a changed outcome. |
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Post by andrew111 on Jun 1, 2018 14:40:05 GMT
Labour did push through some changes that I did not like, mostly trying to consolidate and centralise power. For example when forced to introduce PR for the European Parliament, they insisted on a list system to make sure the political Parties got to choose the MEPs, not the voters.
Similarly I was not keen on the Cabinet system in local government..
They tried to introduce elected Mayors, but the majority of places rejected the idea by large majorities in referenda. Of course the Tory approach has been to ignore those votes and try to impose Mayors by saying "Accept a Mayor or these huge funding cuts will not be even slightly ameliorated".... Which I regard as blackmail.
It is always worth keeping in mind the disrespect shown to votes of 65% plus in northern cities when considering much closer votes which fix "the will of the people" for generations
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Post by therealriga on Jun 1, 2018 16:12:49 GMT
Joe Bloggs has 1100 votes. He needs 1000 to be elected. That gives him a surplus of 100. 1000 of his ballot papers express a further preference. Each is transferred at a value of 0.1 (100/1000.) Primary school mathematics. AV is an even more simple system but if you remember the 2011 referendum, that bloody Rik Mayall advert managed to make it sound impenetrably complex. If wheeling out Rik Mayall is the best your campaign can do, you deserve to lose. The recent referendum campaigns are great arguments for representative democracy. All of them, on both sides, have relied on lies, straw men, misrepresentations and vacuous celebrities or celebrity politicians to get their point across. For example the opposition to AV argued that electronic counting machines would be necessary. A blatant lie. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2018 16:21:04 GMT
"This baby needs a monitor not a new voting system," will haunt me for the rest of my days.
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jamie
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Post by jamie on Jun 1, 2018 16:23:09 GMT
All of them, on both sides, have relied on lies, straw men, misrepresentations and vacuous celebrities or celebrity politicians to get their point across. But what about referendum campaigns? |
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Post by timrollpickering on Jun 1, 2018 16:26:03 GMT
Nothing wrong with using a good actor to satirise the sort of politician who wanted and hoped to thrive under AV.
As for voting machines, as I said at the time, yes they weren't in the initial plans and Nick Clegg promised they wouldn't come but:
1). Nick Clegg Promises were rather a soft currency then.
2). They are used for counting Scottish STV and London Mayor and Assembly elections.
3). It is very easy to see a country so obsessed with quick results that it legislated to "Save Election Night" invariably looking to such machines as the solution to the longer counts multiple rounds bring, no doubts with cries of "Modernisation!" and sceptics dismissed as "Dinosaurs!"
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Post by therealriga on Jun 1, 2018 20:24:33 GMT
Nothing wrong with using a good actor to satirise the sort of politician who wanted and hoped to thrive under AV. As for voting machines, as I said at the time, yes they weren't in the initial plans and Nick Clegg promised they wouldn't come but: 1). Nick Clegg Promises were rather a soft currency then. 2). They are used for counting Scottish STV and London Mayor and Assembly elections. 3). It is very easy to see a country so obsessed with quick results that it legislated to "Save Election Night" invariably looking to such machines as the solution to the longer counts multiple rounds bring, no doubts with cries of "Modernisation!" and sceptics dismissed as "Dinosaurs!" 1) If the status quo side had mocked the use of celebs accordingly, that would have been fair enough, but they wheeled out their own celebrities and there is a problem when it's boiled down to a choice between what David Gower and Darren Gough on the one hand say and Colin Firth and Joanna Lumley on the other say. It shows a total contempt for the electorate on both sides. 2) They are not used in Ireland and are totally unnecessary. 3) You're completely right on the modernisation point, but don't you see that that applies equally to FPTP? A country obsessed with quick results and "Save Election Night" can (and I believe will), sooner or later demand that for any election. Electronic counting has been used for quite a while for FPTP in the US. It isn't something limited to transferable or proportional systems. |
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Post by therealriga on Jun 1, 2018 20:29:53 GMT
All of them, on both sides, have relied on lies, straw men, misrepresentations and vacuous celebrities or celebrity politicians to get their point across. But what about referendum campaigns? What about just making the arguments on both sides and letting the electorate make up their mind? If you don't have confidence in them doing so and making an informed choice, stick with representative democracy. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jun 1, 2018 21:07:13 GMT
Nothing wrong with using a good actor to satirise the sort of politician who wanted and hoped to thrive under AV. As for voting machines, as I said at the time, yes they weren't in the initial plans and Nick Clegg promised they wouldn't come but: 1). Nick Clegg Promises were rather a soft currency then. 2). They are used for counting Scottish STV and London Mayor and Assembly elections. 3). It is very easy to see a country so obsessed with quick results that it legislated to "Save Election Night" invariably looking to such machines as the solution to the longer counts multiple rounds bring, no doubts with cries of "Modernisation!" and sceptics dismissed as "Dinosaurs!" I would argue that 'Save Election Night' was much more about attachment to tradition, even when tradition didn't really serve any useful purpose. Which is the exact same reason why there's very little chance voting machines are going to materialise any time soon and that would have been the case under AV too. |
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Post by andrew111 on Jun 2, 2018 0:03:54 GMT
Nothing wrong with using a good actor to satirise the sort of politician who wanted and hoped to thrive under AV. As for voting machines, as I said at the time, yes they weren't in the initial plans and Nick Clegg promised they wouldn't come but: 1). Nick Clegg Promises were rather a soft currency then. 2). They are used for counting Scottish STV and London Mayor and Assembly elections. 3). It is very easy to see a country so obsessed with quick results that it legislated to "Save Election Night" invariably looking to such machines as the solution to the longer counts multiple rounds bring, no doubts with cries of "Modernisation!" and sceptics dismissed as "Dinosaurs!" I could not raise any enthusiasm to campaign for AV, because it was not PR at all.
However I did assume that the advantages over FPTP were so obvious that no-one would find any coherent arguments against it. I was not ready for the vested-interest led campaign of outrageous lies and calumnies against AV led by the two main Parties and their dogs in the Press. It really should have prepared us for the next UK referendum - lies win if repeated often enough...
But having Clegg lead the campaign was the kiss of death, just as Cameron and Osborne were the kiss of death for Remain
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,846
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jun 2, 2018 3:10:16 GMT
It really should have prepared us for the next UK referendum - lies win if repeated often enough... It's a competition between which side's lies gain most traction. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Jun 2, 2018 7:05:53 GMT
Nothing wrong with using a good actor to satirise the sort of politician who wanted and hoped to thrive under AV. As for voting machines, as I said at the time, yes they weren't in the initial plans and Nick Clegg promised they wouldn't come but: 1). Nick Clegg Promises were rather a soft currency then. 2). They are used for counting Scottish STV and London Mayor and Assembly elections. 3). It is very easy to see a country so obsessed with quick results that it legislated to "Save Election Night" invariably looking to such machines as the solution to the longer counts multiple rounds bring, no doubts with cries of "Modernisation!" and sceptics dismissed as "Dinosaurs!" 1) If the status quo side had mocked the use of celebs accordingly, that would have been fair enough, but they wheeled out their own celebrities and there is a problem when it's boiled down to a choice between what David Gower and Darren Gough on the one hand say and Colin Firth and Joanna Lumley on the other say. It shows a total contempt for the electorate on both sides. 2) They are not used in Ireland and are totally unnecessary. 3) You're completely right on the modernisation point, but don't you see that that applies equally to FPTP? A country obsessed with quick results and "Save Election Night" can (and I believe will), sooner or later demand that for any election. Electronic counting has been used for quite a while for FPTP in the US. It isn't something limited to transferable or proportional systems. 1). In this regard Mayall reprising a famous role as a fictional politician was a step up (and also an improvement on his role as Hitler in an anti-Euro advert). And he was making political points rather than "vote this way if you like the Guardian arts supplement or that way if you likes the sports pages". 2). Ireland introduced STV before machines (and indeed even portable calculators) were a realistic option and so has got used to the long counts that way. That's different from when a country introduces a new system and has to cope with very different expectations. 3). Both uses came about because of new voting systems, not because people wanted to speed up the longstanding existing process. (Not that machines have been great in London anyway, with the clusterfuck at each election leading to small hours declarations, but look at the opposition to switching to a good old paper count.) FPTP is long established and has quick counts already so there isn't the same combination of circumstances and pressure for technological instant fixes. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Jun 2, 2018 7:13:10 GMT
I would argue that 'Save Election Night' was much more about attachment to tradition, even when tradition didn't really serve any useful purpose. Which is the exact same reason why there's very little chance voting machines are going to materialise any time soon and that would have been the case under AV too. Oh I agree "Save Election Night" was silly ( and said so at the time) but a load of politicians went and passed legislation anyway. But so many politicians and commentators are obsessed with the early morning results, to the point that it constrains discussion of methods such as early voting and multiple polling station voting, that it's hard to not see them giving in to such temptations. |
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