Ship of Fools: Why UKIP Really is Scum

Thread: Why UKIP Really is Scum Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

There's nothing strange in by-election results, although had UKIP won Heywood & Middleton too that would have been surprising.

What I find appalling isn't that a turncoat Tory won for UKIP in a seat where UKIP could well have unseated the Tory at the next generaal election, but the statement from Nigel Farage regarding a ban on immigrants with HIV on the tired old premise that it puts a strain on the NHS. FFS, the reason the NHS is under a strain is because many of the services that used to be provided from within the NHS at modest cost are now contracted out so private firms can make money out of what should be spent on patient care.

I have to ask why Farage focused on HIV. Why not those with cancer, heart disease or anyone with an unhealthy lifestyle such as smokers, drinkers and anyone with BMI over about 28?

What a five-star, fur-lined, ocean-going shit the man is.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I don't think Labour will be that freaked out about Heywood, as their share of the vote held up, while the Tory and LibDem vote collapsed. It's the turn-out which affects Labour, and here it was low - 36%. It will rise for the GE. It is ridiculous that the winner gets 14% of the electorate voting for her.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Most of us can probably hazard a guess at why Farage would put 'immigrants, ban, and HIV' in the same sentence.
It might make people like me baulk at putting a cross in UKIP's box at the General, but then I don't regard myself as typical. If he thinks there are buttons to be pushed among a disgruntled Electorate he's going to push them.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

Unfortunately he's successfully tapping into something rather widespread, cheap and nasty among the electorate.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

We had this in western Canada with the variously named Reform Party, Canadian Alliance, Canadian Reform Alliance (probably among others, and after the total collapse of the Progressive Conservative Party, a merging under the banner of the Conservative Party.

The implications for Canada's politics was to pull everything sharply right, corporatist, ideological, while softening or sending underground their religious and anti-minority ideas. If UKIP is a populist bunch and repeatedly gets sizeable votes whether elected or not, I suspect it will pull your politrics further right and reactionary as well. And as if any of us need more reactionariness.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
If he thinks there are buttons to be pushed among a disgruntled Electorate he's going to push them.

Got it in one.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

Surely the people putting the biggest strain on the NHS are old people. Old people also vote disproportionately for UKIP.

Not quite sure what the correlation is, but I’m sure there has to be one. [Two face]

Anyway, UKIP are vile.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
If UKIP is a populist bunch and repeatedly gets sizeable votes whether elected or not, I suspect it will pull your politrics further right and reactionary as well.

If more people want to vote for right-wing parties, then isn't that what's supposed to happen?

Seems to me that your real problem is with the fact that so many people have problems that they think only UKIP can solve. But I guess it's always easier to rant about the symptom rather than the cause...

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't think Labour will be that freaked out about Heywood, as their share of the vote held up, while the Tory and LibDem vote collapsed.

That's Labour's line and they're sticking to it though. At least for today. Their share was in fact 1% up on what they achieved in Heywood in 2010, although their performance in 2010 was poor by historic standards. In Clacton their share of the vote was down 50%.

There is an argument that Labour are in fact the most freaked out of any of the parties this morning, because the Tories had emotionally accepted in advance that they were going to lose the seat, whereas Labour hadn't priced in coming within 600 odd votes of following them, in their own heartlands.

You're right though that the turnout masks things to an extent. I think the GE next year is going to be fascinating.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Farage's number 2 wants to extend the privatisation of the NHS.

They don't advertise this stuff very well.

Like the effects of flat rate tax on the poor.

I am getting quite worried. I believe in democracy. But when the voters want to vote for a vile, ignorant, and selfish set of millionaires it makes me squirm.

I used to feel that there were only a few people I wouldn't trust if there were a totalitarian party in power, but now... My sister and I went on a trip to Shetland and Orkney through the Guardian travel offers, and could not discuss politics freely because there were some Ukip voters on it. (The company the G uses used other papers as well.)

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

Why did you feel you couldn't discuss it freely - surely that's the way to prick the UKIP-voters' bubble?

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Why did you feel you couldn't discuss it freely - surely that's the way to prick the UKIP-voters' bubble?

Or get humilated for being trendy, lefty, yoghurt-knitting guardianistas who are out of touch. Perhaps it's that.

Anyway, we will turn the seat back Conservative at the next General Election.

Since the BNP imploded though, all those disaffected Labour voters who don't like them forners will run from Millibore to Nigel F.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

It's bizarre how the die-hard Tory-lovers like Deano try to spin this as a disaster for Labour.

The Tories have always had a breadth of support from the mild to the extremist. But they need that full breadth of support in order to win against reasonable, rational people who care about others, the environment and who wouldn't dream of voting Conservative.

What UKIP do is they are taking away the extremist and the unthinking Tory vote. It's as though the Conservatives have largely given up, and the way they try to spin it is that anything less a Labour landslide is viewed as a crisis. All this despite the fact that the Conservatives lost a safe seat and had their vote decimated in Heywood.

Labour certainly aren't cruising to an inevitable victory as they were this time in 1996, not least because they're losing support to the Greens.

For me, the really interesting point was the turnouts. Clacton was down on the general election but at 50% was higher than many constituencies get. Yet Heywood was just 36%. It all rather brings to mind this lovely cartoon by Dave Walker.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Why did you feel you couldn't discuss it freely - surely that's the way to prick the UKIP-voters' bubble?

Because it was supposed to be a friendly archaeology based trip, and discussions between people of opposite views about politics tend not to be friendly. (I didn't know who the people were, my sister had identified them. She is much more political than me, and felt it to be inappropriate. It is easier for me to go along with her feelings than not.)

I'm not so sure about Clacton going back to the Tories at the GE, though, deano. There is clearly a personal rather than a party element in the voting. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Reckless' seat. (Was there ever such a case of nominative determinism?)

[ 10. October 2014, 15:05: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
It's bizarre how the die-hard Tory-lovers like Deano try to spin this as a disaster for Labour.

The Tories have always had a breadth of support from the mild to the extremist. But they need that full breadth of support in order to win against reasonable, rational people who care about others, the environment and who wouldn't dream of voting Conservative.

What UKIP do is they are taking away the extremist and the unthinking Tory vote. It's as though the Conservatives have largely given up, and the way they try to spin it is that anything less a Labour landslide is viewed as a crisis. All this despite the fact that the Conservatives lost a safe seat and had their vote decimated in Heywood.

Labour certainly aren't cruising to an inevitable victory as they were this time in 1996, not least because they're losing support to the Greens.

For me, the really interesting point was the turnouts. Clacton was down on the general election but at 50% was higher than many constituencies get. Yet Heywood was just 36%. It all rather brings to mind this lovely cartoon by Dave Walker.

Ha! It isn't just me. As ever, the Daily Mash has it nailed...

UKIP attracting Labour voters who are fed up and stupid

Which is probably rather more on the nose than your cartoonist.

Posted by Callan (# 525) on :

Let's see now. There are two by-elections. One party loses their seat. The other hangs on, albeit by a much reduced margin. Any disinterested analysis is going to say that neither party have ground for complacency but that the second party did better than the first.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:

I am getting quite worried. I believe in democracy. But when the voters want to vote for a vile, ignorant, and selfish set of millionaires it makes me squirm.

I can't stand UKip

But I'm getting hopeful.

If the two party system is changed to a five or six party system, maybe people will begin to be interested and engaged again in politics.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Let's see now. There are two by-elections. One party loses their seat. The other hangs on, albeit by a much reduced margin. Any disinterested analysis is going to say that neither party have ground for complacency but that the second party did better than the first.

And yet... the first party has been under the cosh of the winning party. Everyone expected the first party to be damaged. It happened.

Nobody really saw the number of voters turning against the second party though. Which means the analysis is not yet complete.

I'll be interested to see how NF talks up the disaffected Labour voters. How is he going to square his left and right?

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

If UKIP really cared about our independence as a nation, they would be going full out against TTIP instead of maundering on about the EU.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
I'll be interested to see how NF talks up the disaffected Labour voters. How is he going to square his left and right?

The National Front will have a tug of war with the Greens.

Oh, that's not what you meant by NF! It can be hard to tell the difference at times.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
If UKIP really cared about our independence as a nation, they would be going full out against TTIP instead of maundering on about the EU.

But UKIP are simply a popularist party - they say things that people want to hear, with Nationalism as a starting point.

They are manipulative bastards, an are succeeding because Labour are pathetic and the Tories actually agree with them, but pretend not to, as they would have to implement these policies.

Of course at the general election, there is a chance that he will be thrown out again.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

In other news, right-wing vote split between two parties, left-wing vote holds up.

Under our woefully antiquated FPTP electoral system, all the pain will be felt by the Tories. I am, actually, feeling quite hopeful.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
It's bizarre how the die-hard Tory-lovers like Deano try to spin this as a disaster for Labour.

It isn't. It really isn't.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

In some ways, I have the feeling that what the UK is going through is similar to what the Netherlands have been going through 13 year ago. But the difference is a FPTP system.

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In other news, right-wing vote split between two parties, left-wing vote holds up.

Under our woefully antiquated FPTP electoral system, all the pain will be felt by the Tories. I am, actually, feeling quite hopeful.

Except there's the Lib Dems who vanished, and Ukip rose by more than the Cons went down.

So it leaves the possibility that Libs replaced massive Labour defections to Ukip (though it could be a artifact of a low turnout or libdems being fishy-or just abstaining)*.

Which is worrying as if people had a worldview that supported Ukips policies you'd have thought they were Tory before. So on that basis either they don't realize what they are getting, they're choosing to cut their nose to spite the face, Ukip are offering something so good it outweighs the bad (which I can't really see, you have Europe-which if in the North you already have London and many of the claims are dubious, and Xenophobia).

*I normally cast a suspicious eye on a tory friends facebook posts (when on politics). But this time seem to have taken his narrative for granted. Now I stop to think there are other quite likely possibilities (although that's still little comfort)

Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :

As Christians we are supposed to be responsible and exercise our vote.

I shall do so.

Tories? No way. Cameron is mealy-mouthed and broken every commitment he has made. A slippery "posh" man.

Labour? God help us. They broke the country financially last time and they are simply stooges of Unite and Unison Milliband even forgets to mention the economy in his Conference speech

UKIP? The less said the better.

My vote? A write-in. None of the above.

[ 10. October 2014, 19:20: Message edited by: shamwari ]

Posted by molopata (# 9933) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I am getting quite worried. I believe in democracy. But when the voters want to vote for a vile, ignorant, and selfish set of millionaires it makes me squirm.

And so you should. Over here in Switzerland we have one such millionaire by the name of Christoph Blocher who ran the Swiss People's Party (SVP) for years and still pulls the strings by proxy. He trashed the consensual style of Swiss politics and made government quite dysfunctional for while. He got minions of aggrieved working class types behind him, because he had mastered the discourse and language spoken at the regulars' table down at your local pub.

Farage is cut out of the the same wood. In fact, we even had him over here speaking to the SVP's subsidiary, the Action group for an Independent and Neutral Switzerland ("AUNS") just last week. Actually, I find the internationality of SVP-UKIP type nationalism and xenophobia quite intriguing. In the same way as Blocher's confrontationalism disrupted the essence of the Swiss political culture that he was supposedly defending, I find Farage's style and outlook rather ... European.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
As Christians we are supposed to be responsible and exercise our vote.

I shall do so.

Tories? No way. Cameron is mealy-mouthed and broken every commitment he has made. A slippery "posh" man.

Labour? God help us. They broke the country financially last time and they are simply stooges of Unite and Unison Milliband even forgets to mention the economy in his Conference speech

UKIP? The less said the better.

My vote? A write-in. None of the above.

As long as you think they're all equally bad, that's fine. Otherwise, you're abdicating the ability to select the least worst option. Because "no representative at all" isn't one of the options.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

What horrifies me is that the population is aging (note the courageously absent mute 'E') and politics goes right with age.

My eyes are swivellinglier. I'm loonier. I'm scummier. With each grain of sand that falls.

Posted by St. Punk the Pious (# 683) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I am getting quite worried. I believe in democracy. But when the voters want to vote for a vile, ignorant, and selfish set of millionaires it makes me squirm…

I know. U. S. voters electing Democrats makes me feel the same way.

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

The result of the Heywood and Middleton by-election suggests that the "anyone but Labour" vote coalesced on UKIP, the Labour vote more or less remaining in place.

If it were the case that UKIP held the balance of power then I would hope, but not expect, that Labour and the Tories would form a national government.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
The result of the Heywood and Middleton by-election suggests that the "anyone but Labour" vote coalesced on UKIP, the Labour vote more or less remaining in place.

But what was the size of the "anyone but Labour" vote, overall?

One of the things that mystifies me about first past the post systems is that they seem to fail to reflect the overall mood of an electorate. It doesn't matter if, for example, the vote for right wing parties is more than the vote for left wing parties, if there's one big left wing party it will win against several smaller right wing parties.

I much prefer our preferential voting system, where people are able to indicate that if they can't have their first choice from 'their' end of the political spectrum, they'd prefer to have another choice from roughly the same end of the political spectrum rather than someone far removed from it.

Most people vote in that fashion, such that even before preferences are formally distributed it's possible to see the overall left/right divide of first preference votes. It's only in very close contests that this might not be reflected in the final outcome.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by molopata:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I am getting quite worried. I believe in democracy. But when the voters want to vote for a vile, ignorant, and selfish set of millionaires it makes me squirm.
And so you should. Over here in Switzerland we have one such millionaire by the name of Christoph Blocher who ran the Swiss People's Party (SVP) for years and still pulls the strings by proxy. He trashed the consensual style of Swiss politics and made government quite dysfunctional for while. He got minions of aggrieved working class types behind him, because he had mastered the discourse and language spoken at the regulars' table down at your local pub.

But did these Swiss working class-types feel disenfranchised in some way? Did they feel excluded by this 'consensual' approach to politics?

One of the reasons why UKIP has been successful lately is that there is a group of people out there who are fed up with the politicians they usually vote for or hate the current system so much that they don't vote at all (except for UKIP). One response to this phenomenon is to brand UKIP voters as racist scumbags or such-like. I'm not sure how that helps.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
One response to this phenomenon is to brand UKIP voters as racist scumbags or such-like. I'm not sure how that helps.

However, they are voting for a party with unashamedly racist, homophobic policies, espoused by homophobic racists. Are you suggesting that we should congratulate them for that?

It's like that Mitchell and Webb sketch where they're playing SS officers and one turns to the other, suggesting that the black uniforms and death's head badges might be a bit much, and "Hans: you don't think we might be the bad guys, do you?"

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

I think the problem is that politicians are not currently making any serious attempts to argue for their political positions. Instead, they are either trying to persuade you that they already agree with you, or that they will make you - or the country - richer.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

[Ran out of edit time.]

Immigration shows this most clearly, as most mainstream parties do not want to reduce immigration much. Whereas a significant portion of the population do.

The politicians don't, because they know that the economic evidence is that major reductions in immigration would be economically detrimental. Whereas a significant amount of voters speak as if they believe that there is a) a significant traffic of people entering the country for benefits and healthcare and who then do no work (this is simply not true) and b) that there is some finite amount of jobs and the more people who enter the country the less jobs there will be (this is also not true).

The unspoken argument, or dogwhistle stuff as I believe they say in the US, is that some people believe our culture is being diluted or undermined. Or in the view of some people, corrupted.

But to believe that, you have to believe that the british citizens of African, Caribbean, Asian, Polish, Romany, Muslim, Buddhist etc descent and tradition are at some level not truly British - and therefore when elements of their heritage become more prominent in the culture, it is a problem. That the culture should be permanently white anglo saxon protestant dominant. Which is essentially the line UKIP is selling, and many other people think that belief is by definition racist. And also likely to be economically disastrous.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think that's right - the dogwhistle message is for white dominance, and also, that it would be economically disastrous.

I also think that UKIP are being quite coy about their policies, and probably some UKIP voters don't realize how right-wing they are.

I notice that Cornwall has quite a strong UKIP following, yet this is a place which is receiving financial aid from the EU.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

Tony Benn was a flawed man and a flawed politian, but this analysis is bang on.

[ 11. October 2014, 11:02: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]

Posted by St. Punk the Pious (# 683) on :

quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
If it were the case that UKIP held the balance of power then I would hope, but not expect, that Labour and the Tories would form a national government.

…Which outrage would just drive more people into the UKIP.

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
One response to this phenomenon is to brand UKIP voters as racist scumbags or such-like. I'm not sure how that helps.
However, they are voting for a party with unashamedly racist, homophobic policies, espoused by homophobic racists. Are you suggesting that we should congratulate them for that?

It's like that Mitchell and Webb sketch where they're playing SS officers and one turns to the other, suggesting that the black uniforms and death's head badges might be a bit much, and "Hans: you don't think we might be the bad guys, do you?"

Ah yes ... "Have you looked at our caps recently?"

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
However, they are voting for a party with unashamedly racist, homophobic policies, espoused by homophobic racists. Are you suggesting that we should congratulate them for that?

No, but perhaps trying to work out why they did so may be enlightening. Or is because they don't read the Guardian up north?

There was an interesting documentary on Channel 4 a few years ago that followed the white, working class men, who found themselves a minority in a muslim majority area of the town they lived in.

These people were all traditional Labour voters but had switched to the BNP.

Now the BNP is dead in the water, it looks as if that component of the electorate has moved to UKIP.

These are old Labour, union types. Why is the left ignoring them and forcing them to vote for UKIP? When will the Labour party start talking about what those people want?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Politics is not, in my book, supposed to be simply about giving people what they want (although goodness knows it seems to descend to that often enough). It's supposed to be about leadership. And leadership includes telling people that some of what they want is contradictory or impossible or counter-productive.

Or just plain wrong. I'm sorry, but I cannot for the life of me think of anything good that could come from telling people that living in a Muslim majority area is a "problem" that you can "solve".

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

These are old Labour, union types. Why is the left ignoring them and forcing them to vote for UKIP? When will the Labour party start talking about what those people want?

'Old' Labour was killed by Mandelson, Blair and 'new' Labour, and the unions were rendered impotent by Thatcher's 1980s Conservatives. Historically both Labour and Conservative parties have catered for 'people like us' and there are a lot of ignorant, homophobic racists in Britain (about 30% of the electorate, IMNSHO). Maybe they deserve some representation?

If that is done then in addition to exposing UKIPs policies for what they are, we'll see how useless and dishonest their MPs are, with the possible exception of various turncoats.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

Or just plain wrong. I'm sorry, but I cannot for the life of me think of anything good that could come from telling people that living in a Muslim majority area is a "problem" that you can "solve".

In the trivial sense, it is indeed a problem that you can solve. The solution, in a slightly different context, was known as "white flight". If you don't like the fact that most of your neighbours are Muslims, you can move.

It's not surprising that enclaves of immigrants from a particular country form - most people find comfort in a familiar-looking face speaking a familiar language and with familiar customs, particularly when faced with a strange and unfamiliar land.

Religious communities will also form naturally - quite apart from the fact that these are often the same as the cultural / national groupings above, once enough people gather and construct a house of worship of some variety, surely it is natural that their coreligionists will tend to be drawn to the existing facility.

So if you agree that it is unsurprising that immigrants to a country should wish to gather with others whose language and culture they find familiar, should you not also be unsurprised if the existing population of a country also seek out the society of those whose language and culture they understand?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Seek out, yes. Achieve it by restricting others, no.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
In some ways, I have the feeling that what the UK is going through is similar to what the Netherlands have been going through 13 year ago. But the difference is a FPTP system.

Yup, the system designed to elect knights of the shire, on a forty shilling freehold. Since it predates political parties by centuries, it takes no account of 'em.

So we end up with a system that ignores the realities of power. Throughout the Eighties, the British electorate voted for a left-wing coalition, and got landed with a bunch of moralizing neoliberal zealots.

It's shocking that more isn't made of this subversion of democracy.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Throughout the Eighties, the British electorate voted for a left-wing coalition, and got landed with a bunch of moralizing neoliberal zealots.

Is this what the left tells itself to help it sleep at night?

[ 11. October 2014, 17:06: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Throughout the Eighties, the British electorate voted for a left-wing coalition, and got landed with a bunch of moralizing neoliberal zealots.
Is this what the left tells itself to help it sleep at night?

Not being a pinko socialist insomniac, I couldn't say. It's certainly what the 80s' votes tell us.

Conservatives never polled above 44%. Combined Labour/Liberal vote was 51% in '79, and Labour/Liberal/SDP got 53% in '83 & '87.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I'm sorry, but I cannot for the life of me think of anything good that could come from telling people that living in a Muslim majority area is a "problem" that you can "solve".

OK, I could be talking out my arse because, though indigenous to this Country, I've never been a UK city dweller. However it strikes me the phenomena of *birds of a feather flocking together* has been a problem here since the 70s.

People moving out of certain urban areas because of the dominance of a particular ethnic group is the prime reason why ethnic integration has largely failed. Those who grew up in streets now changed by immigration don't need to be told it's a problem they know it, and solving it usually meant, or means, moving house.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

For which I would blame the fuckwits in the SDP. One election of failure ought to have been enough for them to realise that their little "project" was not going to work but their egos couldn't take slinking back with their tails between their legs.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
People moving out of certain urban areas because of the dominance of a particular ethnic group is the prime reason why ethnic integration has largely failed. Those who grew up in streets now changed by immigration don't need to be told it's a problem they know it, and solving it usually meant, or means, moving house.

The crazy thing is that the working class Muslim areas are the areas that are most like those areas would have been 60 years ago - male breadwinner working locally with a wife staying home to look after the kids. The kids play in the street and mums keep an eye on them from the door. It should be a socially conservative tory's wet dream, but unfortunately the faces are brown and the kids go to Madrasa rather than Sunday School. It's not that those areas have changed it's that wider society has. And yes, I have lived in northern English cities in the past.

[ 11. October 2014, 18:46: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

People moving out of certain urban areas because of the dominance of a particular ethnic group

Genuine question - how far is that a real phenomenon, and how far is it just perception?

Some of my inlaws seem to think I live surrounded by Somalis. In reality I live near a mosque and there are lots of black and brown faces around, but I doubt they're a majority, and I happen to know one of our black neighbours is Anglo-Catholic, there are Rastafarian and Ethiopian Orthodox communities within walking distance as well as lots of other churches, and though the lady at the corner shop wears a headscarf the shop itself displays little posters advertising Pentecostal preachers.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I'm sorry, but I cannot for the life of me think of anything good that could come from telling people that living in a Muslim majority area is a "problem" that you can "solve".
OK, I could be talking out my arse because, though indigenous to this Country, I've never been a UK city dweller. However it strikes me the phenomena of *birds of a feather flocking together* has been a problem here since the 70s.

People moving out of certain urban areas because of the dominance of a particular ethnic group is the prime reason why ethnic integration has largely failed. Those who grew up in streets now changed by immigration don't need to be told it's a problem they know it, and solving it usually meant, or means, moving house.

There are non-white people living on my street, I don't see this as a problem. There are also people with children and very elderly people, one of whom goes to mass every Sunday. These people are also not living the same way I am.

The woman next door came over from Germany originally, this weekend I am feeding her cats.

I am not planning to sell my house. I don't expect the world to be like looking in a mirror.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
.... It's not that those areas have changed it's that wider society has.

This correct. The irony being that when really putting the 70s under the microscope, (with it's industrial unrest and soccer hooligan dawn), Golden Age it certainly was not. All of which makes the growth of UKIP support look so very bizarre in that much of it seems based on illusion and rose-tinted fantasy.

I believe there are many factors driving it. Hardship from the Bankers crash must have lent the impetus, yet the pace of change in wider society is surely providing the tension. Cameron himself has said that many of us feel that we on a train and want it to stop.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Always has been a problem in the East End of London. One wave of immigrants is absorbed and moves out as the next wave comes in. Whitechapel is now Bengali / Bangladeshi - amazing market and shops, Malaysian food in the library café, but the signs they have revealed in doing up the shops that existed in Jack the Ripper's time have Jewish names above the doors.

There are churches that have been Huguenot, synagogues and are now mosques. The white flight in London from those areas was to Dagenham, but that's very African and Eastern European (from the shops) and now on out to Romford.

(And ironically the mixed race white Afro-Caribbean lad I work with says the same stuff UKIP does about the Bangladeshi community - his grandparents came over pre-Windrush)

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I am not planning to sell my house. I don't expect the world to be like looking in a mirror.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

If the two party system is changed to a five or six party system, maybe people will begin to be interested and engaged again in politics.

That hasn't happened here (NZ) unfortunately. In the recent election there were multiple parties standing, a system that allows a party to have an MP if they get 5% of the vote nationally, a longer time to cast votes and some very contentious issues, yet turnout was one of the lowest ever.

Huia

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

Although average turnouts in NZ general elections are considerably higher than in UK general elections.

Now, the level of policy debate on the other hand..

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In other news, right-wing vote split between two parties, left-wing vote holds up.

Under our woefully antiquated FPTP electoral system, all the pain will be felt by the Tories. I am, actually, feeling quite hopeful.

The results don't quite bear this out. In Clacton, Labour polled 10,799. In the by-election they got 3,957. Given that turnout in the by-election was only slightly below GE 2010, it appears that UKIP are taking votes from Labour too.

To put it another way: the left-wing party held on by a whisker against a right-wing party in one by-election. In the other by-election, one right-wing party replaced another and the left-wing party were nowhere.

There is also analysis that I can't find now which indicates that UKIP are picking up votes from disaffected Lib Dems (down from 5,577 to 483 in Clacton and down from 10,474 to 1,457 in Heywood).

It's not at all clear that UKIP are simply going to split the right-wing vote. If they poll as strongly in the forthcoming GE as they have been the last couple of years, they will probably cause a number of Lib Dems to lose their seats to Tories and (as Heywood & Middleton demonstrated) actually win seats the Tories can't. This is the opposite to the result you hope for.

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :

Ignore what I originally wrote here - it was about completely the wrong byelection. Nick Robinson et all have nothing to fear from me...

[ 12. October 2014, 05:41: Message edited by: Stejjie ]

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I notice that Cornwall has quite a strong UKIP following, yet this is a place which is receiving financial aid from the EU.

Bear in mind that Cornwall has a low level of Afro Caribbean/Asian/African peoples in its population. That's the local UKIP issue - the wider world then Europe not vice versa as elsewhere. The Cornish know that they need EEC money just to survive so they are not biting that hand.

The main issue seems to be the number of people from the EEC working in tourism and in local factories keeping wages low and arguably driving them down.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Although average turnouts in NZ general elections are considerably higher than in UK gene
ral elections.

Now, the level of policy debate on the other hand..

Cod, thanks for that - I'm always disappointed about NZ turnout levels - I didn't realise others were worse. As for the level of policy debate -a snake's belly would be higher.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:

There is also analysis that I can't find now which indicates that UKIP are picking up votes from disaffected Lib Dems (down from 5,577 to 483 in Clacton and down from 10,474 to 1,457 in Heywood).

If you take a naive reading of the plot on this page, you would believe that the Kippers picked up support from the Tories in 2012-2013, but for the last year have been gaining mostly at the expense of Labour, and a little from the Lib Dems.

I suspect that UKIP will have a significant effect on next year's election, but it's too hard to tell whether the effect will be good for Labour or for the Tories. I'm pretty sure it's not nearly as simple as "split the right wing vote". At the moment, I'd probably put money on another coalition of some description.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

I suspect that the UKIP vote will fall when it comes to the general election - they may get 6-8% but I doubt it will be more. Outside of safe tory areas tories won't risk a UKIP vote if it means electing Labour.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I am not planning to sell my house. I don't expect the world to be like looking in a mirror.

Tell that to the 60 year old ex-steel worker living in a terraced house in Grimesthorpe, Sheffield.

Because he's the one who has switched from Labour, to the BNP to UKIP, trying to find a voice. But it seems nobody from the 'civilised' left wants to hear it.

The 'civilised' left seems to want to focus on those handsome metrosexual people who live in the parts of cities where they film mobile phone adverts.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

What I would like to see, is people trying to change his mind.

For example, it is not immigration that killed the steel industry.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

Hmm

This is how the voting went in Burngreave in the last council election. What is striking is that it is almost the same number as in Dore and Totley. Dore and Totley is not exactly working class.

Jengie

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
For which I would blame the fuckwits in the SDP. One election of failure ought to have been enough for them to realise that their little "project" was not going to work but their egos couldn't take slinking back with their tails between their legs.

You've nicely illustrated the biggest pitfalls of FPTP: a two party duopoly, tribalism, and the spoiler effect.

The SDP broke away 'cause the rest of the Labour Party drank deep on the Kool-Aid, and voted for unilateral disarmament and an exit from the EEC. Neither party came close to representing them.

Any system that reduces your choice to two, and punishes voting for the policies you actually support, is busted.

FPTP has helped build the head of steam that's now exploding with UKIP. If anti-EU Conservative supporters weren't shackled to their party for so long, UKIP would've gotten into Westminster years ago, and these issues would've been openly discussed and defused. As it is, they've been suppressed, and this is the result.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:

This is how the voting went in Burngreave in the last council election.

We interrupt your normal service for a brief [Killing me]

at the fact that the Conservative candidate was a Mr. Cutts.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

Why are you talking about FPTP? It's the system you HAVE to work with.

If you don't have any answers or ideas that work in the world as it is now then you don't have anything to offer.

Nobody majority will ever be delivered to change FPTP so bleating about needing something different exposes you as bankrupt of ideas.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Hmm

This is how the voting went in Burngreave in the last council election. What is striking is that it is almost the same number as in Dore and Totley. Dore and Totley is not exactly working class.

Jengie

And given the Labour candidates name in Burngreave, how do yo feel the ex-steelworker voted? Which segment of society in Burngreave voted for the Labour candidate?

Pity we don't have a more detailed breakdown of the voting patterns.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Why are you talking about FPTP? It's the system you HAVE to work with.

If you don't have any answers or ideas that work in the world as it is now then you don't have anything to offer.

Nobody majority will ever be delivered to change FPTP so bleating about needing something different exposes you as bankrupt of ideas.

Oh away with your counsel of despair. If your ancestors had bought this defeatist claptrap, Britain would enjoy male suffrage on the 40 shilling freehold, electing seconds-sons to pocket boroughs.

New Zealand adopted a proportional system in the teeth of its political establishment. Britain's already adopted 'em for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and European elections.

Pressing for change, and working with the status quo in the meantime, aren't mutually exclusive. Tactical votes within the current system are exactly what may lead to its demise.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Votes for women!

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

Really now, quetzalcoatl, if you don't have any answers or ideas that work in the world as it is now, then you don't have anything to offer. Why, next you'll be arguing for Irish home rule! Get a grip, man.

[Devil]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Byron, I thought your argument against FPTP was very good, and explained it better than most politicians do. You have a whole career ahead of you! Unless you are a prominent MP in disguise of course.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

...and yet we still have FPTP. Even after 180 years or there and there abouts.

The SDP were banging on about PR 30 odd years ago and we get it. Okay! WE GET IT!!!

Everyone in the country understands what it is about, and still they voted - VOTED - to keep FPTP.

Nobody wants PR! It is associated with Big and Small David. It is a joke and those who's only argument is "please give us PR because we are weak otherwise" are jokes of equal magnitude.

I really do wonder what Spitting Image would make of you!

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
...and yet we still have FPTP. Even after 180 years or there and there abouts.

The SDP were banging on about PR 30 odd years ago and we get it. Okay! WE GET IT!!!

Everyone in the country understands what it is about, and still they voted - VOTED - to keep FPTP.

Nobody wants PR! It is associated with Big and Small David. It is a joke and those who's only argument is "please give us PR because we are weak otherwise" are jokes of equal magnitude.

I really do wonder what Spitting Image would make of you!

The people did not vote against proportional representation or to keep FPTP. They voted against the Alternative Vote method, which is a system of preferential voting, and doesn't result in proportional representation.

The Tories, in their pre-coalition negotiations with the LibDems made damn sure the offer would be for an unpopular, vague and pointless change, and the LibDems took it like the best offer they were likely to get.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

Deano, the British people weren't offered a proportional system, they were offered a choice between FPTP and AV. Saying that this limited poll shows a lack of support for something that was never on offer is like saying that prisoners offered a choice between supermax and a chain gang have no desire to be free.

The data we have suggests that PR would, at the least, be a strong contender.

It's not been adopted, simply, 'cause the two main British parties have a vested interest in getting an inflated majority. That says nothing for its merits, everything for their self-interest. Claiming that the system used throughout Europe is a joke is, well, amusing.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Hmm

This is how the voting went in Burngreave in the last council election. What is striking is that it is almost the same number as in Dore and Totley. Dore and Totley is not exactly working class.

Jengie
And given the Labour candidates name in Burngreave, how do yo feel the ex-steelworker voted? Which segment of society in Burngreave voted for the Labour candidate?

Pity we don't have a more detailed breakdown of the voting patterns.

But what about the third place candidate?

Actually I pretty sure the steel worker does not exist. I was wondering why when I easily recall Pitsmoor, Firvale and Shirecliff, I had difficulty recalling Grimesthorpe. Aparently it was largely demolished in the 1970s to create greenbelt around the factories. Given that it is also thirty years since those factories closed, even if he was still there he would have spent more of his life on benefits than in a factory. It is amazing what a change of descriptor does.

There are plenty of ex-steel workers made redundant more recently around, but that is not where they are in Sheffield.

Jengie

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Throughout the Eighties, the British electorate voted for a left-wing coalition, and got landed with a bunch of moralizing neoliberal zealots.

It's shocking that more isn't made of this subversion of democracy.

I'm not getting into the debate about voting systems, because so many (all?) political threads on this site seem to descend to a debate about FPTP vs AV vs PR.

But can we really say that the electorate voted for a coalition? I've always been suspicious of such claims (which have been made more recently by MPs saying that people decided they didn't want a single-party majority government in 2010).

Surely when a voter is in the polling station the only thing he knows is where is going to put the 'x'. He doesn't know what the man in the next booth is going to do. He doesn't know what millions of other voters are about to do at that same time. How can people vote for a coalition?

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

In, say, Denmark, individuals do exactly that, as the coalitions are agreed before the election.

But I wasn't referring to individuals, rather, the electoral results for the people as a whole, regardless of intent in the voting booth.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

But even if a majority had voted for left-wing parties in, say, 1983, I don't know how one could say that people voted for a 'left-wing coalition' as we have no idea what a Lib-Lab-SDP government would've looked like or whether such a thing could even have been formed in the first place.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Back in 1983 there was no way that the Labour Party and SDP would have formed a coalition for more than about a fortnight. The situation was better by 1987, but not much.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
In, say, Denmark, individuals do exactly that, as the coalitions are agreed before the election.

So how does voting for "coalition A" or "coalition B" differ from a two-party system?

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But even if a majority had voted for left-wing parties in, say, 1983, I don't know how one could say that people voted for a 'left-wing coalition' as we have no idea what a Lib-Lab-SDP government would've looked like or whether such a thing could even have been formed in the first place.

"Voted for a coalition" is just the electoral arithmetic. If the UK had PR at the time, and the politicians were too fond of brawling to form one, there'd have been either a minority govt., or it would've gone back to the polls.

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
So how does voting for "coalition A" or "coalition B" differ from a two-party system?

Two ways: they're still separate parties, with separate agendas, so power's spread out, and there must be mutual compromise; and the parties get different shares of the vote.

Say the pre-election coalition's formed of Parties A, B, and C. A and B are popular, but C are too extreme, so A & B get most votes, and tones things down in government. C learns from its mistakes, kicks out the extremists, and does better next time around.

Translated to the UK, UKIP might be in coalition with, say, a free market liberal party, and a populist conservative party. They'd openly advocate leaving the EU in Parliament, but to get another shot at government, would have to show they were capable of playing nice, and doing more than ranting.

Meanwhile, the opposition (social democrats, liberals, greens) would have to make a case for the EU. If the right-wing coalition bollixed up, public support for the EU could grow. In any case, tensions would have an outlet, at a much earlier stage.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Byron: In, say, Denmark, individuals do exactly that, as the coalitions are agreed before the election.

This happens in Brazil too.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

It just strikes me that Labour and Tories have created a cartel, which suppresses dissent. Well, it doesn't suppress it by means of arrest and imprisonment, but by means of FPTP.

I suppose one of the arguments for FPTP is stable government, since some coalitions on the continent have been unstable.

But there is just a feeling of asphyxiation now in British politics.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Byron: In, say, Denmark, individuals do exactly that, as the coalitions are agreed before the election.
This happens in Brazil too.

And Sweden, with the imaginatively named Alliance.

That's a neat example of PR forcing a political faction, in this case the Swedish right, to get its act together and organize a credible government-in-waiting. As it had to appeal to all of Sweden, not just a few swing seats, it's genuinely centrist.

A British version would've stopped Thatcherism from ever happening, stopped the Labour Party lurching to neoliberal la-la land, and stopped frustration building until UKIP could cash in.

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It just strikes me that Labour and Tories have created a cartel, which suppresses dissent. Well, it doesn't suppress it by means of arrest and imprisonment, but by means of FPTP.

I suppose one of the arguments for FPTP is stable government, since some coalitions on the continent have been unstable.

But there is just a feeling of asphyxiation now in British politics.

Exactly, under FPTP, people vote negatively, to keep out the candidate their fear most. It poisons democracy and chokes off discussion.

The stable government claim is self-justifying spin from the two party duopoly. FPTP either leads to majoritarian bullying, which tore the UK apart in the '80s, or straight up weird coalitions like the present one, which bear no relation to the balance of the votes.

You could never accuse, say, Germany of unstable government.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Two ways: they're still separate parties, with separate agendas, so power's spread out, and there must be mutual compromise; and the parties get different shares of the vote.

So parties X, Y and Z agree that they are going to form a coalition, but the actual political programme of the XYZ coalition is subject to negotiation after the election, and will depend on the vote share?

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think the Scottish campaign had a big effect on me, although I am not Scottish. It struck me how a large number of people want to get away fast, from this suffocating system of duopoly.

In the process, a lot of new energy has been expressed. Of course, the duopoly want to cover it all up again, under the asphyxiating duvet of Westminster. But we can't breathe!

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
So parties X, Y and Z agree that they are going to form a coalition, but the actual political programme of the XYZ coalition is subject to negotiation after the election, and will depend on the vote share?

It'll vary: the Swedish Alliance agreed a common platform going in. Either way, compromise is the order of the day.

So UKIP might start by blustering about EU secession, but their free market liberal partners, who like access to European markets, would tell 'em that's off the table, but they'd be willing to discuss, say, getting some powers back, which appeals to the populist conservatives. And so on.

If UKIP refuse to play, they get marginalized like the Sweden Democrats, and harm their own cause.

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think the Scottish campaign had a big effect on me, although I am not Scottish. It struck me how a large number of people want to get away fast, from this suffocating system of duopoly.

In the process, a lot of new energy has been expressed. Of course, the duopoly want to cover it all up again, under the asphyxiating duvet of Westminster. But we can't breathe!

And Scotland, of course, has the proportional system to do it. [Cool]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
It'll vary: the Swedish Alliance agreed a common platform going in. Either way, compromise is the order of the day.

I am missing how this Alliance with an agreed programme is any different from the coalition that we call "Labour", for example.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

The other thing that is absurd about the British system is all the wasted votes. I live in a Tory seat, and I am never going to vote Tory. So I can have a protest vote, for Green, or whatever, but there is no point, since they will never win here. But under PR, a vote for Greens isn't wasted at all - if they get 6% of the vote, they get about 40 MPs.

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The other thing that is absurd about the British system is all the wasted votes. I live in a Tory seat, and I am never going to vote Tory. So I can have a protest vote, for Green, or whatever, but there is no point, since they will never win here. But under PR, a vote for Greens isn't wasted at all - if they get 6% of the vote, they get about 40 MPs.

Yes - although having voted LibDem in a safe Labour seat in 2010 and then seeing what an absolute mess they've made of things in government, part of me is kind of glad that my vote was completely wasted and had no bearing whatsoever on the result...

FPTP is wrong for all kinds of reasons; there's the wasted vote phenomenon you speak of. There's the fact that it turns what should be one of the most important decisions the country can make - who will form our government, one that you would think would require lots of thought and creful reflection - essentially into a pissing contest between the 2 main parties. There's the fact that it means the result of a general election hinges on the results in just a few marginal constituencies, meaning the main parties concentrate all their effort on wooing those voters and almost ignoring the rest of the country. There's the fact that it introduces a huge disconnect between what we're told we're doing (voting for the next government) and what, technically speaking, we're actually doing (voting to elect our local MP). There's the fact that the results can bear no resemblance to the numbers of votes cast - didn't Major in 92 get more votes than Blair in 97? Didn't Atlee technically lose the 1950 election on the number of votes, but still managed to get a majority in the Commons*?

It's just a mess for any number of reasons - surely it's indefensible by now, if "fairness" as a supposedly British value means anything at all?

*If these are true, then why aren't Tories up in arms about the unfairness of FPTP (I'm by no means a Tory, by the way)?

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think Tories and Labour hold on to FPTP because they believe that their turn will come. It may be unfair on the voter, but it supplies them with regular governments.

It also obscures the fact that they form minority governments. For example, Blair's landslide in 1997 was on 43% of the vote.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

You are forgetting the mystical mandate that the Tories postulate.* With this, Thatcher, though not having a majority of the popular vote, claimed a mandate for carrying out her plans. (I remember this - it is when I worked out that there was some odd interpretation of "mandate" that did not appear in the dictionary.) And with it, I heard someone after the last election claiming that there was a mandate for Conservative policies. Not, I think, Cameron.

I, stupidly, moved from a marginal seat to a gerrymandered Tory one where the good local MP who had good things to say about coalition just after the election has transmogrified into a member of cabinet with a responsibility I cannot support him in.

*I know Labour has also had non-majority governments, but I haven't heard the mandate argument raised in those cases.

[ 13. October 2014, 08:45: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

The 1983 election was interesting, as the Liberals got 25% of the vote, and 23 MPs, pretty ridiculous, when you think under PR, they would get about 150. Thatcher's popular vote actually went down, but her MPs went up. And in 1987, her vote also went down, marginally.

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

It is, I fear, completely hopeless to attempt to distinguish between STV and party list forms of PR.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
It is, I fear, completely hopeless to attempt to distinguish between STV and party list forms of PR.

My old sig was "I can explain things to you, but I cannot comprehend things for you". It applies here.

Joe Voter may be too dim to understand the iniquities of FPTP or the differences between AV, STV and Party List, but that's no reason for not reforming the voting system. We have laws against fraud, but how many people could competently sit on a jury for a fraud case?

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
It is, I fear, completely hopeless to attempt to distinguish between STV and party list forms of PR.

No very easy.

STV you order the candidates in the order you want them to get in.

PR with party lists, means the party orders the candidates within its party in the order it wants them to get in.

This can matter if you value the MP as a constituency MP or the councillor for their involvement locally. In one election my vote would have been significantly different if one local labour councillor had been standing. In other words like many people around here I voted green except when she stood.

Jengie

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I am not planning to sell my house. I don't expect the world to be like looking in a mirror.

Tell that to the 60 year old ex-steel worker living in a terraced house in Grimesthorpe, Sheffield.

I wish someone would tell him, instead of taking advantage of his false beliefs to secure his vote.

That's what so much of politics boils down to these days. It doesn't matter whether what you say is true, what matters is whether it will win you votes.

Politics is the art of promising, not of delivering, which means you can promise the impossible. You can promise that keeping out immigrants will restore industries and boost job prospects. You can promise that there will be no cultural change. You can promise that you will fix aspects of the UK economy that you actually have no control over because of the global nature of economic forces.

And people will believe you. Because they want to believe you. Believing you is easier and happier than coming to grips with a complex reality that is immune to catchy slogans and simplistic rhetoric.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
...and yet we still have FPTP. Even after 180 years or there and there abouts.

These damn colonials over here got rid of it 100 years ago. How exactly is your insistence on sticking with the old system of any credit to your nation?

It was bizarre and amusing to see all the arguments against preferential voting in the UK referendum that were based on how awful the system was in Australia. Honestly, you'd think we were some kind of country with rigged elections, not 10 places above you on the Democracy Index.

Posted by toadstrike (# 18244) on :

Personally I think the Tories will live to bitterly regret their opposition to AV.

Not that it's the best or anything like it but would have been a step in the right direction.

It would have given much less power to that mega-pratt Farage.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

My friend and I are contemplating the situation where a lot of Ukippers get seats in May. People not only with weird ideas, but with, unless they are Tory renegades, zilch experience of running anything*, of having to negotiate in meetings, of having to behave properly in properly run meetings of any sort. No union experience, obviously. No council experience. No non-conformist church meeting experience. Possibly some PCC experience. Women's Institute - maybe (but not so likely, looking at WI policies, that they were successful there).
*Except business where they were in charge and ran things by fiat.
Heaven help us.

Posted by Dal Segno (# 14673) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
One response to this phenomenon is to brand UKIP voters as racist scumbags or such-like. I'm not sure how that helps.
However, they are voting for a party with unashamedly racist, homophobic policies, espoused by homophobic racists. Are you suggesting that we should congratulate them for that?

It's like that Mitchell and Webb sketch where they're playing SS officers and one turns to the other, suggesting that the black uniforms and death's head badges might be a bit much, and "Hans: you don't think we might be the bad guys, do you?"

AIUI, the National Socialist party's successful campaign in the early 1930s in Germany was on the basis that

we are a great country;
those nasty foreigners are to blame for our problems;
our elected politicians have sold us down the river.

Without wanting to invoke Godwin's law, these basic messages do sound awfully similar.

Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on :

quote:
Originally posted by toadstrike:
Personally I think the Tories will live to bitterly regret their opposition to AV.

I'm inclined to agree. I think the biggest problem was the Lib Dems didn't even want the damn thing. AV or STV are the systems I actually LIKE, but it was hard to get enthused over 'Well we can't get what we really want, vote for the compromise we might be able to get'.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
AIUI, the National Socialist party's successful campaign in the early 1930s in Germany was on the basis that
we are a great country;
those nasty foreigners are to blame for our problems;
our elected politicians have sold us down the river.
Without wanting to invoke Godwin's law, these basic messages do sound awfully similar.

Indeed similar. And who sowed the soil? Oh yes those incompetent Allies with their naused-up Versailles Treaty. So if UKIP is riding on a similar wave, we must ask -- Who, or what, has set the wave in motion on this occasion?
It's not far-right politics that's the problem, they lurk in the shadows of every culture, it's the fact that ordinary people are beginning to lend it an ear.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
AIUI, the National Socialist party's successful campaign in the early 1930s in Germany was on the basis that
we are a great country;
those nasty foreigners are to blame for our problems;
our elected politicians have sold us down the river.
Without wanting to invoke Godwin's law, these basic messages do sound awfully similar.
Indeed similar. And who sowed the soil? Oh yes those incompetent Allies with their naused-up Versailles Treaty. So if UKIP is riding on a similar wave, we must ask -- Who, or what, has set the wave in motion on this occasion?
It's not far-right politics that's the problem, they lurk in the shadows of every culture, it's the fact that ordinary people are beginning to lend it an ear.

And why are those ordinary people unhappy? Seven years of economic misery brought about not by immigrants but by city types looking towards a quick return, culminating in "Securitized" loans. What a misnomer that was! Deliberately lending to the one sector of the market that wasn't already in debt, namely those who couldn't afford to repay loans.

People ought to be able to direct their anger rightly, but the very party that represents moneyed interest is in power. How the Hell did that happen???

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
...and yet we still have FPTP. Even after 180 years or there and there abouts.
These damn colonials over here got rid of it 100 years ago. How exactly is your insistence on sticking with the old system of any credit to your nation?

It was bizarre and amusing to see all the arguments against preferential voting in the UK referendum that were based on how awful the system was in Australia. Honestly, you'd think we were some kind of country with rigged elections, not 10 places above you on the Democracy Index.

Well, to be fair England and Wales also had the slightly less glowing example of Northern Ireland, closer to home to look to as well, for PR-style voting. [Hot and Hormonal]

I'd rather have democracy than not - but there are moments when it seems one can have just a little bit too much of it! Still think it's a better system than first past the post, though.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
AIUI, the National Socialist party's successful campaign in the early 1930s in Germany was on the basis that
we are a great country;
those nasty foreigners are to blame for our problems;
our elected politicians have sold us down the river.
Without wanting to invoke Godwin's law, these basic messages do sound awfully similar.
Indeed similar. And who sowed the soil? Oh yes those incompetent Allies with their naused-up Versailles Treaty. So if UKIP is riding on a similar wave, we must ask -- Who, or what, has set the wave in motion on this occasion?
It's not far-right politics that's the problem, they lurk in the shadows of every culture, it's the fact that ordinary people are beginning to lend it an ear.
And why are those ordinary people unhappy? Seven years of economic misery brought about not by immigrants but by city types looking towards a quick return, culminating in "Securitized" loans. What a misnomer that was! Deliberately lending to the one sector of the market that wasn't already in debt, namely those who couldn't afford to repay loans.

People ought to be able to direct their anger rightly, but the very party that represents moneyed interest is in power. How the Hell did that happen???

Isn't it partly because Labour drank the Kool-Aid of neo-liberalism, and therefore accepted deregulation, leveraged finance, and all the other toxic elements that led to the crash? Hence, people recoiled from Labour - into the arms of those Tory advocates of deregulation, leveraged finance, and so on!

It strikes me as a mad and unhealthy situation, where now 3 or 4, if you include UKIP, parties are basically neo-liberal, and supporters of predator capitalism.

I think it explains in part the Scots push for independence; but in England, the target now seems to be immigrants and people on benefit. Let the poor pay for the bonuses of the rich!

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
AV or STV are the systems I actually LIKE, but it was hard to get enthused over 'Well we can't get what we really want, vote for the compromise we might be able to get'.

Er... isn't compromise a basic tenet of coalition governments? If you want PR, you are going to get a lot of that, so if compromise doesn't enthuse you, it's probably best if you avoid PR.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

When I read these discussions on the woes of FPTP I am struck between the illogic of complaining about the FPTP while simultaneously complaining about coalitions, ie, "not getting what you vote for", and a political establishment that does not properly represent the people.

Well, be careful what you wish for. I recently cast my vote in a PR election. I didn't vote for the party whose policies I prefer. Why? Because they were likely to go into coalition with a party whose policies I like even less than the party I did vote for. A significant proportion of the members elected are only there by choice of back-room party officials. Given the endless whinging about London-centricity, one would have thought that a system that allows locals to elect who represents their locality to be the best system.

There is of course an electoral system that avoids the worst of coalition politics, encourages centrism, reduces wasted votes and ensures that every member of parliament is elected by members of the public rather than just members of parties. That system is AV. I put its rejection down to a massive brain fart on the part of the British people.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
That system is AV. I put its rejection down to a massive brain fart on the part of the British people.

Or democracy perhaps?

Anyone actually think that the British people understand PR and the variants and actually, in the main, still want FPTP?

Is there anyone on here, apart from me and a few others, actually prepared to countenance the fact the the British people understand what YOU want, but have decided, democratically, that THEY don't?

Or is that asking too much of you? To accept that you may be out of touch with the electorate on this? Is that shaking your world a little too much?

Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
When I read these discussions on the woes of FPTP I am struck between the illogic of complaining about the FPTP while simultaneously complaining about coalitions, ie, "not getting what you vote for", and a political establishment that does not properly represent the people.

I struggle to think of an effective political establishment that properly represents the people. FPTP amounts to serial minority dictatorship, List PR corrects that by handing more power to party machines and removing the ability to vote for a candidate instead of a party, and other systems are effectively attempts to compromise between those two unpalatable extremes.

But the moaning about coalitions is most likely down to two things - the fact that it's never really been a likely prospect for us as a country, and the fact that it's been done very badly. These points may be related.

Because We Don't Have Coalition Governments, it's never really been discussed so that anyone knows who certain parties are likely to get into bed with, and the parties aren't used to handling a situation more complicated than being simply in government or in opposition. Having FPTP is also a factor, as it creates massive inequality in the coalition. The Tories took just 36% of the vote and the Lib Dems 23%, but the seats split 307-57. Under a more PR-based system, a coalition between the two would have been a genuine collaboration, but under FPTP it's been more like the Lib Dems being absorbed by the Tories. Nearly a quarter of the electorate voted for a party that's nominally in government but has effectively no power. Blame FPTP or Clegg's incompetence, but it's understandable if that leads to suspicion of coalitions.

FTR, I like coalition government and I think it's the best way of revitalising our moribund political discourse, but only if the system changes to make it practical and effective, by giving parties a proportion of seats that more effectively reflects their national vote.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

Is this really a case though of "the people [UKIP voters] have failed us; therefore we need to elect a new people"? Do not the media have to take some of the blame for miseducating (nice Bush-style neologism!) 'the people'?

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

The possible irony here is that UKIP were very much in favour of AV during the referendum, but the official pro-AV group shunned them during the campaign. Perhaps if they'd been a little more generous the result might have been closer?

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I am missing how this Alliance with an agreed programme is any different from the coalition that we call "Labour", for example.

Indeed. Unlike a monolith such as the British Labour Party, in the Swedish Alliance, power is dispersed amongst its four members, their differences aren't suppressed, and, most importantly, to get a majority in the Riksdag they must get a majority of the popular vote.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

The Great Gumby illustrates a lesser known, but crucial, defect of FPTP: its creation of unnatural coalitions. (Kinda like unnatural practices, but weirder.) In both ideology & the popular vote, the Liberal Democrats and Labour are natural allies. Yet FPTP has thrown 'em into bed with a party despised by most of their supporters, and the disproportionate balance of seats has made 'em whipping boys.

FPTP works great in at least two jurisdictions: the Isle of Man and the Falkland Islands. Why? Neither has political parties. (Well, plural at least, the Manx now have the grand total of one.) It also works kinda OK in the U.S., as the Constitution separates legislative and executive functions, which, along with primaries, weakens party control and makes representatives accountable to their district.

Everywhere else, it operates on the fiction that parties don't exist, which not only hands them vast power, but ensures that issues people want discussed get suppressed. Then UKIP.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

One thing that is often talked about in mainland Europe is how our RV coalition based system can be used to 'neutralize' extreme parties.

The argument is: accept them in a coalition. Their voters will see their real face. Or their voters will dislike them when they're forced to compromise. This will hurt them in the long run.

I'm not sure if I agree with this. At least in my country this has been tried with both Fortuyn and Wilders. The jury is still out on whether this has been succesful.

But I wonder if and how this would work in a FPTP system.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

Dragging the whackos into the light can work well. In England, exposure in local and European elections has reduced the British National Party from threat to laughing stock, and UKIP has now poached their voter base. The BNP has imploded.

Responsibility can also be the making of a party, but only if they step up. In Scotland, thanks to Holyrood, the SNP have gone from being a fringe band of dreamers to the natural party of government, and came within a whisker of achieving independence at the first attempt.

UKIP could, I suspect, go either way. If they stepped up, they'd have to engage meaningfully with the EU, as the SNP have with the UK. In either case, at least the issue would be confronted.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

The one parliament UKIP have been elected to in numbers has been the European one and their performance there has been less than stellar, getting into bed with some pretty unsavoury types and a number of their MEPs having their knuckles rapped for creativity on the expenses front.

If a few of their less clued-up candidates get elected, rather than turncoats and the few genuine Ukippers who have a grain of sense, then UKIPs star will fall a long way fast and their Nigel's position will be under threat.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Yes, I think UKIP are benefiting at the moment from being unknown, and also, being coy about their policies. A lot of people will say 'UKIP' without knowing too much about them, except anti-EU and anti-immigrant. They are not really being scrutinized.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I think UKIP are benefiting at the moment from being unknown, and also, being coy about their policies. A lot of people will say 'UKIP' without knowing too much about them, except anti-EU and anti-immigrant. They are not really being scrutinized.

Perhaps.

But I think that there is another way of looking at this. UKIP are gaining in popularity not because no-one knows what they really stand for - but because people who actually agree with what they stand for are now in a position where they can reveal their true sentiments.

There has long been an undercurrent of "Little Englanders" in the UK, and especially in south east England. Such people may, in the past, have voted Tory or Labour, depending upon other factors. Such people also knew that their Little England sentiments would be frowned upon if they were made public.

In this view of things, all that has changed is that "Little Englanders" now have an acceptable flag to rally under.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Sioni Sais: If a few of their less clued-up candidates get elected, rather than turncoats and the few genuine Ukippers who have a grain of sense, then UKIPs star will fall a long way fast and their Nigel's position will be under threat.

I'm not sure. Experiences in the Netherlands (and perhaps in other countries) have shown that their supporters can be rather forgiving of these kind of things.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Oscar

Yes, fair comment. But it will be interesting to see if UKIP are questioned on their policies towards the minimum wage, trade unions, the BBC, privatization in the NHS, and so on. Will they seem like a right wing faction of the Tories?

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If a few of their less clued-up candidates get elected, rather than turncoats and the few genuine Ukippers who have a grain of sense, then UKIPs star will fall a long way fast and their Nigel's position will be under threat.

I think that's right (assuming they don't up their game). Am I right in thinking that about 1 in 10 UKIP MEPs have ended up in prison? Not a great record, but then again not many people pay attention to what happens in Brussels and Strasbourg.

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I think UKIP are benefiting at the moment from being unknown, and also, being coy about their policies. A lot of people will say 'UKIP' without knowing too much about them, except anti-EU and anti-immigrant. They are not really being scrutinized.

I think this is true, too. The Lib Dems enjoyed a similar position until around mid-2010.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Oscar

Yes, fair comment. But it will be interesting to see if UKIP are questioned on their policies towards the minimum wage, trade unions, the BBC, privatization in the NHS, and so on. Will they seem like a right wing faction of the Tories?

I started to prepare a long reply to this, but thought better of it.

As I see it, whilst UKIP may appear to be a right wing rival to the Tories, in reality its populist raison d'être means that it arrives at its policy positions in a very different way to the Conservative party. As such, it stand to gain a significant proportion of support from erstwhile Labour voters. I think that definitions of "right" and "left" start to break down when dealing with populist parties.

(What confuses things a little, of course, is that the Conservative party has, in recent decades, contained a significant minority of members whose natural instincts are populist rather than Tory. It could be argued that the likes of Reckless and Carswell have not really "jumped ship" but simply moved to the place where they always belonged.)

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

OK, although 'right-wing' and 'populist' don't contradict each other, really. At the moment, I am seeing UKIP as a classic small businessman's party, that is, in favour of low business taxes, low wages, impediments to trade unions, deregulation, with the added bonus of hostility to foreigners and Europe.

A bit like poujadism, although they were also anti-industrialization and in fact, anti-urban.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

There has long been an undercurrent of "Little Englanders" in the UK, and especially in south east England. Such people may, in the past, have voted Tory or Labour, depending upon other factors. Such people also knew that their Little England sentiments would be frowned upon if they were made public.

I wouldn't call it an undercurrent. The Mail, the Express and the Telegraph have been anti-EU and anti-immigration for years. The difference is that the larger parties understand economics and therefore won't go as far as the right-wing press would like.

Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :

UKIP isn't benefitting from a single political factor, but a range of them. They're a populist party who are tapping into a genuine Little Englander constituency, but it goes beyond that. They also benefit from a lack of scrutiny or knowledge of their policies (some comparisons between their voters' stated priorities and actual UKIP policies have made this very clear), the focus-group-driven clustering of the main parties, and most importantly being seen as outsiders.

The economy's fucked, the future's Chinese, and the people who are feeling that most don't have anywhere to turn for answers, given a choice between 3 identikit parties* who are at least partly implicated in where we are, and whose basic strategy is to carry on cutting, while still spending money we haven't got. Add in the perception that they're all greedy backscratchers with their snouts in the trough, and you've got the perfect storm for a party like UKIP.

Because UKIP have answers. They might be dishonest, delusional or simply racist, but they have answers. Break the Brussels Dictatorship, kick out all the fuzzy wuzzies and Britain will be great again! Add in a few ill-conceived sepia-tinged ideas about returning to the 1950s, add a dash of plausible deniability for some of the more extreme policies, and you've got a platform that carries a strong appeal for a lot of people.

You know why it works? This is what UKIP and Barack Obama have in common - hope. It doesn't matter how delusional or extremist the ideas are if only one party's making any claim to be able to improve a desperate situation. It might seem a gamble on another beer-swilling public school toff, but given the alternatives on offer, what does the average UKIP voter have to lose?

* - Every time someone describes the current Labour party as left wing, I feel a shiver down my spine as the late lamented ken launches into a ghostly tirade about what the real left wing looks like.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I would say hope - and fantasy. This is why Farage is often portrayed in a pub with pint in hand, part of a fantasy of the English gent in the saloon bar, who knows a damn sight more about life than these effete politicians.

So 'sepia-tinged' is spot-on, also part of the fantasy. England was once white and pure, and women knew their place in the kitchen and the bedroom, and men hewed coal, and went down the pub on a Friday night, and you've never had it so good.

We'll be invading Suez any time soon, but hang on, maybe that can be arranged, or somewhere quite close to Suez.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...men hewed coal...

From the way people on here bang on about Margaret Thatcher and the 1980s, I think it's not just Ukippers who share this nostalgic fantasy.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...men hewed coal...
From the way people on here bang on about Margaret Thatcher and the 1980s, I think it's not just Ukippers who share this nostalgic fantasy.

Absolutely. I don't think UKIP are creating these fantasies - for example, the gent in the saloon bar who is a fount of wisdom, or the monochrome nation without fuzzy-wuzzies - but they are exploiting them.

Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...men hewed coal...
From the way people on here bang on about Margaret Thatcher and the 1980s, I think it's not just Ukippers who share this nostalgic fantasy.
Absolutely. I don't think UKIP are creating these fantasies - for example, the gent in the saloon bar who is a fount of wisdom, or the monochrome nation without fuzzy-wuzzies - but they are exploiting them.

It's a fusion of classic Golden Age myths and tropes. "Wasn't life so much better when...?" It doesn't matter how you finish that rhetorical question, whether it's "you could leave your front door unlocked" or "Britannia ruled the waves" or even "darkies stayed away and poofs were locked up". By the time you get to the second half, a lot of people - even people who weren't born in this fabulous mythical age of streets paved with gold - have stopped listening and are lost in their own dreamworld. As so often, the Boomers dictate the terms here, regressing to their own childhood.

The dangerous part is that UKIP are essentially winning votes on the back of a promise to give the country the keys to this Never Never Land, which shows the gullibility of a large part of the electorate, and is heading for trouble whether or not they succeed. It'll get worse before it gets better, although the time's ripe for a visionary leader to build a UK that's proud of who we are, not what we were. But then when you look at the state of the main parties...

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

While I wouldn't vote UKIP for lots of reasons, I can sort of see why someone might. I think the reason why their core issues of Europe and immigration have so much traction with so many voters is that these are two issues on which politicians have taken action regardless of the views of the voters.

The EU has changed considerably since 1975 and, while other countries have had the opportunity to vote on changes in referendums (often voting several times to get the 'right' answer), the British have never had that choice from the main parties until very recently, as they have supported the major EU treaties. UKIP does at least offer an alternative on this issue that chimes with the views of a significant minority, if not a small majority, of the population.

Similarly with immigration, Britain has changed enormously thanks to post-war mass immigration. But at what point were people consulted? This seems to me to have been a phenomenon that those at the top either imposed or were indifferent to. Addressing this issue has been difficult (and Powell's Birmingham speech is perhaps a case in point) but by continuing to impose something that goes against the grain of a lot of people, having failed to make a positive, convincing case for it, is bound to create some form of disenchantment in the long term.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Let me see if I can make a case for post-1945 immigration.

Britain had a manpower shortage after the war

Britain had and has a skills shortage

There is a worldwide market for goods and services: jobs and money move freely, why not people?

If we let people come to Britain, it's easier for the British to travel to and live/get work elsewhere

A heck of a lot of British people left these shores to set up home and make their fortunes elsewhere. They still do it. Why restrict others from coming here to do the same thing now?

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
(often voting several times to get the 'right' answer),

Not this bollocks again. Tell me, when someone rejects a deal, do you say "fine, you clearly don't want a deal, I'll stop asking" or do you change the terms of the deal and ask again? Pretty sure most people would go for the second, which is precisely what the EU did in negotiations over the Lisbon Treaty. It's bullshit memes like this (and the straight banana, and the banning of imperial measures, neither true) that fuel UKIP and their fuckwit fellow travellers.

Posted by An die Freude (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
(often voting several times to get the 'right' answer),
Not this bollocks again. Tell me, when someone rejects a deal, do you say "fine, you clearly don't want a deal, I'll stop asking" or do you change the terms of the deal and ask again? Pretty sure most people would go for the second, which is precisely what the EU did in negotiations over the Lisbon Treaty. It's bullshit memes like this (and the straight banana, and the banning of imperial measures, neither true) that fuel UKIP and their fuckwit fellow travellers.

I'm sorry, but this kind of furious denial does little to help either. The version of the Lisbon treaty that was accepted was a VERY minor tweak. Polls said it would lose if it came to referendums in most countries in Europe - which it didn't. Facing the European Monetary Union, the Swedish prime minister confirmed that if the people voted no, they'd just have to wait and then do a new referendum a few years later. Now that was part of his chauvinist leadership style, but the complete lack of responses by the vice-president of the European Commission to what could be done to say a firm no to the treaty does your argument no favours either.

If there's one thing the EU should do, it's remove stupid national anachronisms such as the imperial measurements. And the food standards do exist and they do limit farmers and they do largely play to reward French farmers and massive inefficiency. Denying legitimate concerns like these is precisely the reason why we have such disrespectful anti-EU movements - respectful dissent has been loudly decried even when well-informed and reasonable.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
And the food standards do exist and they do limit farmers

The standards exist but nothing is stopping anyone selling produce that doesn't meet the class 1 standard, which is all the curvature of bananas has anything to do with. There is no ban on straight bananas, or crooked cucumbers, or discoloured oranges, or any of the things mentioned in the standards for class 1.

I think the regulations on metric usage are perfectly sensible - everything has to be labelled in metric, but it can be labelled in imperial too if you want.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
If there's one thing the EU should do, it's remove stupid national anachronisms such as the imperial measurements.

Well, they could, but I think that would make a British Exit much more likely.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
If there's one thing the EU should do, it's remove stupid national anachronisms such as the imperial measurements.
Well, they could, but I think that would make a British Exit much more likely.

Really? Aren't there better anti-EU arguments than a system of measurements that is easier to use than one based on agriculture in the Middle Ages?

Posted by An die Freude (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
If there's one thing the EU should do, it's remove stupid national anachronisms such as the imperial measurements.
Well, they could, but I think that would make a British Exit much more likely.

I am as Euroskeptic as anyone, but seriously, the imperial measurements are as stupid as fitted carpets in bathrooms. Traders have always conformed to better, more rational standards in order to enable them to be sold in wider areas. The imperial measurements are doomed by their stupidity as well as their impopularity (stemming from their stupidity). If sticking firmly to stupidity is what'll cause your exit, I'm sure an EU exit is far from the worst thing your nation is up for in the upcoming century.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
If there's one thing the EU should do, it's remove stupid national anachronisms such as the imperial measurements.
Well, they could, but I think that would make a British Exit much more likely.
Really? Aren't there better anti-EU arguments than a system of measurements that is easier to use than one based on agriculture in the Middle Ages?

Yes, of course there are. But imperial measurements are very much part of everyday life in the UK: from pints of beer and milk to roadsigns in miles to people of all ages describing their height in feet and inches. An die Freude might think the system 'stupid' but tens of millions of Britons would disagree.

If the EU came along and said 'we're going to abolish the pint of beer and force you to change all your roadsigns' then I expect the response would be very Anglo-Saxon in nature.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
If there's one thing the EU should do, it's remove stupid national anachronisms such as the imperial measurements.
Well, they could, but I think that would make a British Exit much more likely.
I am as Euroskeptic as anyone, but seriously, the imperial measurements are as stupid as fitted carpets in bathrooms. Traders have always conformed to better, more rational standards in order to enable them to be sold in wider areas. The imperial measurements are doomed by their stupidity as well as their impopularity (stemming from their stupidity). If sticking firmly to stupidity is what'll cause your exit, I'm sure an EU exit is far from the worst thing your nation is up for in the upcoming century.

There's nothing stupid about imperial measurements - I use them all the time for practical things. Cooking, DIY, anything involving clothing or fabric. Heck, we're buying and renovating a house and all the measurements are in feet and inches. They're no more arbitrary than the metric system (seriously, an incorrectly calculated fraction of the distance between the equator and the north pole?) and certainly less than our system of time measurement. Sure, anything scientific you'll do in SI units because the derived units are easier to work with, but for everyday practical purposes there are no real advantages to metric.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
They're no more arbitrary than the metric system (seriously, an incorrectly calculated fraction of the distance between the equator and the north pole?) and certainly less than our system of time measurement. Sure, anything scientific you'll do in SI units because the derived units are easier to work with, but for everyday practical purposes there are no real advantages to metric.

The units themselves aren't any more arbitrary. The rules that dictate whether you subdivide/multiply by 8 or 12 or 16 or 29 to convert to a smaller or larger unit are spectacularly arbitrary.

The innovation of the metric system isn't the size of the SI units, it's the fact that everything is done in base 10 like our counting system so that 'conversions' merely involve shifting a decimal point. I can guarantee you I can convert between millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres far faster than you can convert between inches, feet, yards and miles. The first clue is in the names.

[ 17. October 2014, 09:57: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
[I]mperial measurements are as stupid as fitted carpets in bathrooms.

Thinking about it, both of these things are very popular amongst large sections of the British public...

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

The innovation of the metric system isn't the size of the SI units, it's the fact that everything is done in base 10 like our counting system so that 'conversions' merely involve shifting a decimal point. I can guarantee you I can convert between millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres far faster than you can convert between inches, feet, yards and miles. The first clue is in the names.

And when I need to do complex calculations I will indeed convert everything into SI units in standard form. I'm talking about everyday practical purposes, which don't require me to convert miles into inches.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Well, if you think using 2 separate systems for different parts of your life is efficient, knock yourself out.

Posted by An die Freude (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

The innovation of the metric system isn't the size of the SI units, it's the fact that everything is done in base 10 like our counting system so that 'conversions' merely involve shifting a decimal point. I can guarantee you I can convert between millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres far faster than you can convert between inches, feet, yards and miles. The first clue is in the names.
And when I need to do complex calculations I will indeed convert everything into SI units in standard form. I'm talking about everyday practical purposes, which don't require me to convert miles into inches.

Which one is cheaper by cost for the fabric, a £12.60 3'4 curtain or a £16.20 4'6 curtain? Which mathematics is easier and faster to do - (12.6/101.6)/(16.2/137.16) or (12.6/(3*12+4))/(16.2/(4*12+6)) ? Which one ends up saving lots of time if you're doing anything more complex than comparing two goods with one another, like, say, comparing ten different curtains of varying lengths and prices? For that matter, because it has been the populace's way of doing maths for 15 years at least, which one is easier to type into a regular cell phone calculator?

Posted by An die Freude (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
[I]mperial measurements are as stupid as fitted carpets in bathrooms.
Thinking about it, both of these things are very popular amongst large sections of the British public...

That the Brits like to give their feet urinal sponge baths hardly speaks to their benefit, IMHO.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

Actually the inches are much quicker:
3'4" is 40 inches, £12.60/40 is £0.315
4'8" is 54 inches, £16.20/54 is £0.30
And that was done in my head. For the metric I would have had to reach for a calculator.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

The innovation of the metric system isn't the size of the SI units, it's the fact that everything is done in base 10 like our counting system so that 'conversions' merely involve shifting a decimal point. I can guarantee you I can convert between millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres far faster than you can convert between inches, feet, yards and miles. The first clue is in the names.
And when I need to do complex calculations I will indeed convert everything into SI units in standard form. I'm talking about everyday practical purposes, which don't require me to convert miles into inches.
Which one is cheaper by cost for the fabric, a £12.60 3'4 curtain or a £16.20 4'6 curtain? Which mathematics is easier and faster to do - (12.6/101.6)/(16.2/137.16) or (12.6/(3*12+4))/(16.2/(4*12+6)) ? Which one ends up saving lots of time if you're doing anything more complex than comparing two goods with one another, like, say, comparing ten different curtains of varying lengths and prices? For that matter, because it has been the populace's way of doing maths for 15 years at least, which one is easier to type into a regular cell phone calculator?

The problem you pose is deeply unrealistic, because the fact is in a country with a metric system no-one would ever offer a curtain that was 137.16 cm long or 101.6 cm long. They would offer curtains in measurements like 140 cm or 100 cm. The very fact that a curtain is 3'4'' or 4'6'' is a FUNCTION of the imperial system, not an asset of it.

I could pose the exact opposite question by picking a measurement that is nice and neat in metric and then converting it into something extremely complex and arcane in imperial. All this is asking is "which is easier - whole numbers or lots of decimal points".

But hey, let's not introduce a bit of analytical logic into a bit of rhetorical pointscoring.

[ 17. October 2014, 10:28: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Really, you should be bemoaning the loss of the good old days of shillings and pounds and guineas. Isn't it disgusting how they got rid of all that good old traditional British money and made it 100 pence to the pound?

Posted by An die Freude (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

The innovation of the metric system isn't the size of the SI units, it's the fact that everything is done in base 10 like our counting system so that 'conversions' merely involve shifting a decimal point. I can guarantee you I can convert between millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres far faster than you can convert between inches, feet, yards and miles. The first clue is in the names.
And when I need to do complex calculations I will indeed convert everything into SI units in standard form. I'm talking about everyday practical purposes, which don't require me to convert miles into inches.
Which one is cheaper by cost for the fabric, a £12.60 3'4 curtain or a £16.20 4'6 curtain? Which mathematics is easier and faster to do - (12.6/101.6)/(16.2/137.16) or (12.6/(3*12+4))/(16.2/(4*12+6)) ? Which one ends up saving lots of time if you're doing anything more complex than comparing two goods with one another, like, say, comparing ten different curtains of varying lengths and prices? For that matter, because it has been the populace's way of doing maths for 15 years at least, which one is easier to type into a regular cell phone calculator?
The problem you pose is deeply unrealistic, because the fact is in a country with a metric system no-one would ever offer a curtain that was 137.16 cm long or 101.6 cm long. They would offer curtains in measurements like 140 cm or 100 cm. The very fact that a curtain is 3'4'' or 4'6'' is a FUNCTION of the imperial system, not an asset of it.

I could pose the exact opposite question by picking a measurement that is nice and neat in metric and then converting it into something extremely complex and arcane in imperial. All this is asking is "which is easier - whole numbers or lots of decimal points".

But hey, let's not introduce a bit of analytical logic into a bit of rhetorical pointscoring.

Ahem. I was embarrassingly enough the one doing the example, not Arethosemyfeet, and I was doing it in favour of the metric system, as there are more things to do in a quick calculation for different figures. But Arethosemyfeet countered with what is essentially the ease of rewriting feet to inches, which I guess is true if you use it every day - which still might be an unnecessary, if reflexive, use of brain power IMO.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think it's stupid to say that imperial was stupid. It's less efficient, and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The problem you pose is deeply unrealistic, because the fact is in a country with a metric system no-one would ever offer a curtain that was 137.16 cm long or 101.6 cm long. They would offer curtains in measurements like 140 cm or 100 cm. The very fact that a curtain is 3'4'' or 4'6'' is a FUNCTION of the imperial system, not an asset of it.

Presumably also depends on what it's covering. A 3' 4" curtain would look ridiculous on a 4' window...

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Really, you should be bemoaning the loss of the good old days of shillings and pounds and guineas. Isn't it disgusting how they got rid of all that good old traditional British money and made it 100 pence to the pound?

It would be interesting to know whether there was a correlation between the introduction of decimal currency and a decline in standards of mental arithmetic. I wouldn't be surprised if there was.

Charles Moore made a good point in the Telegraph recently, I think, that introducing decimal currency cut us off from our past. In the late 60s / early 70s, it was possible to have a penny bearing the head of Queen Victoria in one's pocket. With decimalisation, all that was swept away.

[ 17. October 2014, 10:40: Message edited by: Anglican't ]

Posted by An die Freude (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think it's stupid to say that imperial was stupid. It's less efficient, and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe.

It's less efficient to write "The imperial measurements are less efficient and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe."

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think it's stupid to say that imperial was stupid. It's less efficient, and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe.
It's less efficient to write "The imperial measurements are less efficient and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe."

That's just stupid.

Posted by An die Freude (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Really, you should be bemoaning the loss of the good old days of shillings and pounds and guineas. Isn't it disgusting how they got rid of all that good old traditional British money and made it 100 pence to the pound?
It would be interesting to know whether there was a correlation between the introduction of decimal currency and a decline in standards of mental arithmetic. I wouldn't be surprised if there was.

For the Lord in his wisdom did not create arithmetics to serve man, but man to serve arithmetics.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Charles Moore made a good point in the Telegraph recently, I think, that introducing decimal currency cut us off from our past. In the late 60s / early 70s, it was possible to have a penny bearing the head of Queen Victoria in one's pocket. With decimalisation, all that was swept away.

Among the other things that "cut us off from our past" are pasteurised milk, clean drinking water, hot showers and closed sewers.

Oh, and electricity, television and planes.

And women's suffrage.

Why can't people just leave everything ALONE so that we can live just as our ancestors did?

That's what I think of his "good point". It's a piece of knee-jerk nostalgia that has no intellectual rigour whatsoever behind it. He's probably got a million and one pieces of technology, from mobile phones to cars to light bulbs to flushing lavatories, that would be completely foreign to Queen Victoria but he gets all choked up about seeing her head on a bit of metal which he would spend on products that were completely inconceivable at the time the coin was minted.

[ 17. October 2014, 11:05: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

YMMV and all that, but I think there's a difference between 'stuff that makes measurable improvements to life, including saving it' and 'nice stuff that's part of my heritage'.

In the 50s and 60s people bulldozed loads of Victorian buildings because the old was considered somehow 'bad', whereas now we seem to have a more enlightened view towards conserving older buildings. The fact that a terraced house wasn't originally designed to house an indoor lavatory isn't a reason in itself to demolish the thing.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I am nostalgic to an extent, but I don't think that having Victorian pennies in my pocket is a big deal. But my allotment is measured in rods, which I find utterly charming. However, I would not suggest that the whole country should begin using rods and perches!

But then, as Jasper Carrott used to say, nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Now Jasper Carrott, there is a nostalgic name.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
YMMV and all that, but I think there's a difference between 'stuff that makes measurable improvements to life, including saving it' and 'nice stuff that's part of my heritage'.

In the 50s and 60s people bulldozed loads of Victorian buildings because the old was considered somehow 'bad', whereas now we seem to have a more enlightened view towards conserving older buildings. The fact that a terraced house wasn't originally designed to house an indoor lavatory isn't a reason in itself to demolish the thing.

Yes, I often visit Bath, and in the 70s, the local council had bold plans to knock down tons of Georgian housing, and build better, newer, brighter houses!

Fortunately, there were enough people alarmed by this, who fought it. None the less, some housing was knocked down, but quite a lot was preserved, and very beautiful it is too, and makes Bath the gorgeous place it is today.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

Let me take a more dispassionate look at Victorian terraces. An inside loo is relatively easy to fix. Inadequate foundations and damp course are a lot harder! When there is a mass demand for houses, then you get cheap and shoddy work. There was high demand in Victorian times for cheap housing with the rapid expansion of cities. The result is that many Victorian terrace houses has serious structural defects that are expensive to fix.

Jengie

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Anyone who wants to collect Victorian pennies, can.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
If there's one thing the EU should do, it's remove stupid national anachronisms such as the imperial measurements.
Well, they could, but I think that would make a British Exit much more likely.
Really? Aren't there better anti-EU arguments than a system of measurements that is easier to use than one based on agriculture in the Middle Ages?
Yes, of course there are. But imperial measurements are very much part of everyday life in the UK: from pints of beer and milk to roadsigns in miles to people of all ages describing their height in feet and inches. An die Freude might think the system 'stupid' but tens of millions of Britons would disagree.

I think the Britons who disagree the most are older people (them again). Those of us who grew up using metric in school are less uncomfortable with it, ISTM.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I think the Britons who disagree the most are older people (them again). Those of us who grew up using metric in school are less uncomfortable with it, ISTM.

Yes, possibly. Younger people do use metric more often, definitely. But having grown up in the 80s and 90s, when children were educated formally only in the metric system, I don't know anyone of my age who would describe themselves as '1.8 metres' or whatever. The only people I know who use kilometres to describe distances are not British.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

I've only just turned 30. I think by most standards I'm still just about considered young. I was taught metric units at school, along with imperial conversion factors.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

OK, we aren't in harmony with the rest of Europe? That would be the Europe where French market traders have still been working in old weights. (Recent information not available.) Where the standard measure for timber is 30cm, curiously very close to the foot.

When teaching, the problem with weights was that a gramme was too small for a child to get a feel for, and a kilo too heavy, where an ounce and a pound were graspable. We were supposed to do a lot of estimating weights and measures, and that became hard. Also, there is now nothing between ml and l, and cm and m, since one is not supposed to use deci anything. As for using mm for measuring in the building trade, when a saw cut is a couple of mm wide... that is not sensible.

I was using both sets of measures for a long time, with no problem. One in the lab and one everywhere else.

Cooking - a table spoon is near enough an ounce - start saying it is 25 g, and a precision is implied which isn't true. Counting tbsp into a bowl is much easier when its 1,2,3... than when it is 25,50,75. We could cut up an 8 ounce block of butter or marge easily into ounces - halve it one way, halve it the other, then halve each half again.

Using fractions of a quantity. 12 divides nicely into halves, quarters, thirds, sixths and twelfths. 16 was even better, except for thirds. And the weights stack well and enable calcultions in binary quantities. Pints divided well - we had sets of measuring jugs at school where each was a half of the size above, and we had fraction of a gill (quarter pint).

10 only does halves, fifths and tenths. the latter two can't easily be folded or estimated by sight. The reason for that is that an odd number of appendages is more resilient in an animal design than an even, five is less easy to split than four or six.

Decimal arithmetic is, I admit, simpler - I wasted a lot of eleven year old time having to do long multiplication and division of bushels, pecks and tons, working in multiple bases in the same calculation, forbidden to look at the back of the exercise book.

But the old measures were people sized. At least in the kitchen and the sewing room. They were estimatable, easy to work with, and carryable. Not in the least ridiculous.

And many houses, my own included, have imperially sized features, which need imperially sized things to fit them. It's daft to translate 3ft 6 ins into metric and expect to get it to fit. Like NASA does.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I've only just turned 30. I think by most standards I'm still just about considered young.

As someone who considers himself relatively young still, but is three years older than you, I whole-heartedly agree.

quote:
I was taught metric units at school, along with imperial conversion factors.

I remember one maths lesson (aged c. 14) which dealt with imperial measurements. Everything else was in metric. I presumed this experience was fairly common?

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
But the old measures were people sized.

This is the key to its longevity, isn't it? As you say, a foot is about a foot.

Also, we have these debates about whether a unit that is divisible by 100 and by 1000 is easier to work with than something which isn't, and yet no-one seriously complains about a system of 60-minute hours, 24-hour days, 7-day weeks and 4-and-a-bit-week months.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Imperial makes more sense than metric.

And when considering which to use for things like cooking, measuring dress material, etc, one should bear in mind the history.

The metric system as it is now is was introduced in France after the revolution although various attempts at a standard measure had been proposed for a long time - one of the most sophisticated systems was proposed by a Brit! It encountered resistance in France so N Buonaparte introduced mesures usuelles - a sort of half-way house between metric and the old French system.

Where imperial scores is that the measurements seem more 'natural' with everything able to be divided into two almost ad nauseam.

In the UK schools have actually compounded the problem with the use of centimetres, which has spread through to home-produced things like flat-pack furniture; the construction industry uses millimetres and has done for the past 45 years or so.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

Like most Brits my age (I'm 52) I grew up using metric and SI units for maths and science in school, but was (and for the most part still am) more comfortable with Imperial units for everyday life.

I was 9 when we changed to decimal currency, so while I remember the old coins with a certain fondness, I'm quite content to think in 10s to count things up.

For other measurements though (cooking*, driving distances, clothes sizes, paper sizes ...) I'm still inclined to think in Imperial.

Weather's an interesting one: temperatures here are always given in Centigrade, rainfall in millimetres and snowfall in centimetres, but I find myself mentally converting the temperatures to Fahrenheit (especially in the summer) and the rainfall and snowfall to inches (or occasionally feet [Eek!]

).

* Since moving to Canada I've had to get used to measuring cooking ingredients in cups, which is a Whole Nother Thing ... [Big Grin]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Really, you should be bemoaning the loss of the good old days of shillings and pounds and guineas. Isn't it disgusting how they got rid of all that good old traditional British money and made it 100 pence to the pound?

Yes. I still am bemoaning it but nobody listens when I point out that the 5p someone has just shelled out for a supermarket carrier bag is actually a whole shilling.

There was no real point in introducing decimal currency at the time. It didn't bring Britain in line with Europe - only the single currency could really do that and that was never an option in the 70s. The immediate difference was that the cost of everything went up overnight once it was decimalized, with "rounding up".

I don't bother with Centigrade and I never buy things in portions of grammes, I continue to buy a quarter or half pound of something. It's silly to fill up the car's petrol tank with litres then drive off at a speed of X miles per hour. Bring back the gallon.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Celsius.

The good thing about SI is that everything, except time, relates to everything else. Doing scientific calculations about masses under acceleration, for example, must have been appalling when you couldn't just fiddle with the mantissa (? - the superscript figure after the 10).

[ 17. October 2014, 16:36: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Oh for fucks sake. If only I was older, I'd be aware how Australia abandoned civilised measurement for wild savagery in 1966. That's the impression some of you give. Apparently we joined billions of people in using a system that makes LESS sense.

And yet, somehow, the moves are always one way. People keep ADOPTING metric instead of abandoning it. How peculiar. Good on the UK and US for not going backwards like everyone else.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
But the old measures were people sized.
This is the key to its longevity, isn't it? As you say, a foot is about a foot.

Yes indeed. Feet and stones are convenient numbers for measuring and weighing people, but mostly it's just habit.

Having moved to the US, I've got used to seeing and using measurements expressed in mils (that's a thousandth of an inch), and the absolutely delightful US customary survey foot, which differs from the international standard foot by two parts in a million.

There's no particularly good reason for that - these units are not superior to SI ones - but the frictional costs associated with changing standards are huge.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Oh for fucks sake. If only I was older, I'd be aware how Australia abandoned civilised measurement for wild savagery in 1966. That's the impression some of you give. Apparently we joined billions of people in using a system that makes LESS sense.

And yet, somehow, the moves are always one way. People keep ADOPTING metric instead of abandoning it. How peculiar. Good on the UK and US for not going backwards like everyone else.

Thing is, the UK officially went metric years ago (with a few exceptions), schools have taught primarily in metric too. A lot of us still use imperial measures because they work well for us. I fail to see why, as has been suggested up thread, we should be forced to abandon them because the likes of you don't like them.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

If you like them, then use them. At home, where it doesn't matter to anyone else. In business however it makes sense for businesses and consumers to have a single unified system.

Some say that the EU has moved on too far from its roots as a 'Common Market' but it wouldn't make sense for some grocers to sell sugar by the pound while others sell by the kilogramme.

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

"Imperial for individuals; metric for machines."

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Strange how a rant about UKIP has stimulated a discussion on metric vs imperial measurements.

A long while back ,(35 yrs or so), there was some geezer down our way who refused sell anything in metric measures. He was always making news in the local rag as he ran the first big 'stack em high, sell em cheap' department store in SW England.
As I recall this individual was regarded as something of a maverick/jerk at the time. Got a feeling he also headed up the campaign to bring back the two minutes silence on Nov 11th and such like.

The point of interest being that old resentments/issues over Europe, harboured by a few old fuddy duddies, appear to have morphed with a whole lot of other stuff to become something that is now finding popular appeal.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If you like them, then use them. At home, where it doesn't matter to anyone else. In business however it makes sense for businesses and consumers to have a single unified system.

Some say that the EU has moved on too far from its roots as a 'Common Market' but it wouldn't make sense for some grocers to sell sugar by the pound while others sell by the kilogramme.

So long as they all sell it by the kilogram and label it as such, why is it a problem if they also label and sell it by the pound if they choose to? Where's the harm? The pound has a precisely defined metric equivalent, so the only issue might be a rounding discrepancy.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
"Imperial for individuals; metric for machines."

It's more like "we're never going to accept something the French thought of".

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If you like them, then use them. At home, where it doesn't matter to anyone else. In business however it makes sense for businesses and consumers to have a single unified system.

Some say that the EU has moved on too far from its roots as a 'Common Market' but it wouldn't make sense for some grocers to sell sugar by the pound while others sell by the kilogramme.
So long as they all sell it by the kilogram and label it as such, why is it a problem if they also label and sell it by the pound if they choose to? Where's the harm? The pound has a precisely defined metric equivalent, so the only issue might be a rounding discrepancy.

There might be an equivalent but to put two cash amounts on one item would cause disputes at the till. Not as dangerous as posting speed limits in mph and kph, but almost as daft.

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Imperial makes more sense than metric.
Where imperial scores is that the measurements seem more 'natural' with everything able to be divided into two almost ad nauseam.

In the UK schools have actually compounded the problem with the use of centimetres, which has spread through to home-produced things like flat-pack furniture; the construction industry uses millimetres and has done for the past 45 years or so.

Except that's the one annoying thing about imperial measurements. It does in a few cases but so barely and inconsistently to hardly be worth counting.
On the mile v kilometer comparison the imperial system you can exactly divide a yard, foot and mile by 0,1 and 2 times more than the equivalent metric working size (the intermediate distances it loses). And in the small time it takes to remember if dividing 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 22 you could remember 100/8=12.5.

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
But the old measures were people sized.
This is the key to its longevity, isn't it? As you say, a foot is about a foot.

For what it's worth a Adults Size 11 Shoe (excluding the sole but including about an inch) is about a foot.
A normal (persons) foot is about 10 inches (or 1/4 of a meter).

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I don't bother with Centigrade and I never buy things in portions of grammes, I continue to buy a quarter or half pound of something. It's silly to fill up the car's petrol tank with litres then drive off at a speed of X miles per hour. Bring back the gallon.

I take it you're part of the "fog in the Channel, continent cut off" brigade. [Roll Eyes]

I use Centigrade all the time, buy pretty much everything in kilos and grams, run in kilometres, and you've clearly forgotten why we buy petrol in litres: initially so that the older pumps didn't have to be changed when the price tipped over the £1 mark, and latterly so old people don't go "how much?" when they fill up.

Imperial is as dead as perches and ells. Long live SI.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

UKIP MEP says Green policies are "half-baked and borderline-extremist".

[Killing me]

Oh crap. Now my irony detectors have gone into meltdown.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
There might be an equivalent but to put two cash amounts on one item would cause disputes at the till. Not as dangerous as posting speed limits in mph and kph, but almost as daft.

I rather seem to recall a transitional period where supermarkets did quote prices in both pounds and kilos. One in large print, one in smaller print. And rather like the entirely normal practice of quoting a price for the box / tin / packet, and then, in small print, a price per 100g or whatever, there was no confusion in doing this.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
For what it's worth a Adults Size 11 Shoe (excluding the sole but including about an inch) is about a foot.

Would that be a male adult, or a female adult? And in what country?

(UK shoe sizes are foot length in barleycorns with an offset. US sizes are also foot length in barleycorns, but the offsets are different from the UK, and also different for men and women.)

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
There might be an equivalent but to put two cash amounts on one item would cause disputes at the till. Not as dangerous as posting speed limits in mph and kph, but almost as daft.

Bollocks. It never had in any butcher, grocer, sweetshop, or indeed any other shop I've used that has done precisely this. Almost every butcher I've ever been in labels their produce by the pound and by the kilogram. Given that most will also knock a few pence off the total to avoid faffing around with pennies it really doesn't matter. Besides, at the level of rounding we're talking about, you might as well quibble about the weight of the paper the meat is wrapped in.

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
For what it's worth a Adults Size 11 Shoe (excluding the sole but including about an inch) is about a foot.
Would that be a male adult, or a female adult? And in what country?

(UK shoe sizes are foot length in barleycorns with an offset. US sizes are also foot length in barleycorns, but the offsets are different from the UK, and also different for men and women.)

UK sizes (which I think is the same M&F).
(I guess I have some excuse given the thread for being so anglocentric [Smile]

)
Though the 10" average I quoted I'm not sure what qualifications were involved.

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

I just noticed that this thread turned into a vague personalized rantings about the metric system. Which is cute. Hands up anyone who prefers Imperial?

You're all fucking idiots.

I mean that technically, according to definition. Because anybody who has to actually do calculations in the real world will tend to prefer metric. Lingering preferences that make useful calculations cumbersome suggest that those kinds of mental motions are not important to you.

Oh, you are / you've found a scientist/engineer/technician who does calculations all the time and still prefers Imperial? Congratulations, you are / have found a functional idiot.

Imperial "just makes more sense" just means you're more familiar with it. If you bothered to actually try using any alternate measurement would build the familiarity you cite as fundamental.

Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

Having moved to the US, I've got used to seeing and using measurements expressed in mils (that's a thousandth of an inch)...

And have you seen the confusion when both "mils" and "mm" are used on the same product? It isn't fun.

quote:
... and the absolutely delightful US customary survey foot, which differs from the international standard foot by two parts in a million.

Due to the fact, of course, that the British and Americans used different barleycorns to define their inches. The problem was discovered during WWII when precision parts from one country wouldn't fit equipment in the other, so both changed their standard inches to be exactly 25.4mm.

However, surveyors don't use inches: they used tenths and hundredths of feet instead, because decimals are much easier to calculate with than fractions.

But surveyors still sometimes have to convert old surveys from chains and links. While there may be some rod and perch surveys in the eastern US, out West we instead get to deal with the original Spanish and Mexican surveys in veras. While the vera has had various official lengths, it was commonly assumed to be one step of a horse, so one of the first steps when dealing with an original survey is to determine the size of the horse the surveyor was riding 200+ years ago.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

And would the metric supporters please refer to Celsius? If you are going to pillory those who like imperial, you might at least get the units you prefer correct.

Posted by An die Freude (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
And would the metric supporters please refer to Celsius? If you are going to pillory those who like imperial, you might at least get the units you prefer correct.

Centigrade is an accurate phrase because it explains the logic behind Celsius's scale - 100 degrees/grades between the two fixed points. And yes, the freezing/boiling point of water is a better and far more useful arbitrary point than whatever was the coldest thing Fahrenheit could come across where he lived.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
There might be an equivalent but to put two cash amounts on one item would cause disputes at the till. Not as dangerous as posting speed limits in mph and kph, but almost as daft.

I think it was a well-known high street store that went through a phase of putting the prices in both pounds and euros on its garments and saying it would accept either at the till. It didn't catch on.

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Imperial is as dead as perches and ells.

Not round here it's not.

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

Does the absence of SI units from poetry suggest some unacknowledged legislation?

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
I just noticed that this thread turned into a vague personalized rantings about the metric system. Which is cute.

To be fair RooK, myself and Q-Lib have attempted to bring UKIP back into the debate but failed miserably.

I sure even Mr Far-rage himself would be highly raged to see to see an explosive Hell thread accusing his party of being 'scum' turn into a fire-side ramble over weights and measures. [Snore]

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
I just noticed that this thread turned into a vague personalized rantings about the metric system. Which is cute. Hands up anyone who prefers Imperial?

You're all fucking idiots.

I mean that technically, according to definition. Because anybody who has to actually do calculations in the real world will tend to prefer metric. Lingering preferences that make useful calculations cumbersome suggest that those kinds of mental motions are not important to you.

Oh, you are / you've found a scientist/engineer/technician who does calculations all the time and still prefers Imperial? Congratulations, you are / have found a functional idiot.

Imperial "just makes more sense" just means you're more familiar with it. If you bothered to actually try using any alternate measurement would build the familiarity you cite as fundamental.

Only a total fucking moron would conclude that a tool that is best in certain situations would be best in all of them. I use scientific units for science. I teach the damn stuff every day. I prefer imperial for practical things in daily life. It's a personal preference, yes, based on what I'm familiar with. It's the same reason I speak English. Fuck off and go learn Esperanto.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Imperial is as dead as perches and ells.
Not round here it's not.

How quaint. A resident of Royston Vasey.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Fuck off and go learn Esperanto.

I think I love you.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Imperial is as dead as perches and ells.
Not round here it's not.
How quaint. A resident of Royston Vasey.

Doc Tor: do you drive a car?

Posted by rufiki (# 11165) on :

Try learning to fly in UK. We measure horizontal distances in metric, height in feet and speed in knots. [Axe murder]

[ 18. October 2014, 21:41: Message edited by: rufiki ]

Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on :

The last time I wanted some bits of timber I was quoted 52p per metre of 2 by 2. Yes, that's 2" by 2" cross section.

What's worse is that these are all 'nominal' measurements anyway, i.e. the measurements made before they plane them smooth, so you actually get somewhat less.

I asked if I could pay in nominal pounds and shave a bit off.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Imperial is as dead as perches and ells.
Not round here it's not.
How quaint. A resident of Royston Vasey.
Doc Tor: do you drive a car?

Well yes, and having mph foisted on me does seem a complete anachronism, given that my entire professional life is lived in SI units. Bloody hell, even paper is measured in gsm.

Sorry and all, but it's dead, dead, dead. Doesn't mean it's lost its charm or wistfulness for days gone by. Just its utility.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
And have you seen the confusion when both "mils" and "mm" are used on the same product? It isn't fun.

And there are enough Brits who have the habit of saying "mills" to mean "millimetres"...

Although, to be fair, I've never seen a screwup based on confusing mm and mils. We seem to be able to screw up easily enough by using out of date drawings, just plain wrong drawings, and in a piece of pure genius I saw the other day, a drawing that indicated that the sum of 30.8 inches and 28.6 inches was 54.3 inches. You have to try quite hard to generate that...

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Well yes, and having mph foisted on me does seem a complete anachronism, given that my entire professional life is lived in SI units.

It's not unreasonable to use m/s to measure the speed of your car, but it makes it rather harder to calculate how much further it will take you to get to Grandma's.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Bloody hell, even paper is measured in gsm.

Paper is measured in inches -- standard letter size paper is 8 1/2" x 11" -- and in pounds -- a ream (500 sheets) of 17x22 bond paper that weighs 20 pounds is known as 20-pound paper. Of course, that 17x20 sheet is four times as big as letter-size paper, so a ream of 20-pound bond paper weighs 5 pounds. [Big Grin]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Paper is measured in inches -- standard letter size paper is 8 1/2" x 11"

Except that standard paper in most of the world is A4, which is slightly different, and has its origins in metric.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_216#A_series

[ 19. October 2014, 06:37: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Imperial is as dead as perches and ells.
Not round here it's not.
How quaint. A resident of Royston Vasey.
Doc Tor: do you drive a car?
Well yes, and having mph foisted on me does seem a complete anachronism, given that my entire professional life is lived in SI units. Bloody hell, even paper is measured in gsm.

Sorry and all, but it's dead, dead, dead. Doesn't mean it's lost its charm or wistfulness for days gone by. Just its utility.

I'm not sure how you can proclaim something to be 'dead, dead, dead' when you have to use it extensively every time you get in your car? (Unless you ignore the speedometer and any road signs, which is of course possible...)

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Bloody hell, even paper is measured in gsm.
Paper is measured in inches -- standard letter size paper is 8 1/2" x 11" -- and in pounds -- a ream (500 sheets) of 17x22 bond paper that weighs 20 pounds is known as 20-pound paper. Of course, that 17x20 sheet is four times as big as letter-size paper, so a ream of 20-pound bond paper weighs 5 pounds.

Only the thickness/volume of paper is measured in gsm, and that doesn't apply in America, where as Ruth says, it's in pounds.

A duodecimal system would have been easier for calculations - 12 is divisible by several more factors than 10.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Anyone know what I an do with a ream of good quality but slightly rough surfaced quarto typing paper? Can I get my computer to recognise it?

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

Cyou can probably alter the paper type im the printer settings, if you can not find it preset you can do it on custom settings if you measure your paper.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

When you say "quarto", there are several different sizes of quarto - it's an adjective rather than a defined size. But if you measure your paper, go for "Custom Size" in Word and input those measurements it ought to be able to handle it. (Famous last words, in theory it should work.)

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

For Fuck's Sake, when did this become the "Geek to Me" thread? That's Heaven. This is Hell. It's gotten about as far away from anything resembling an actual Hellish topic, and I'm really not sure why we're letting it live. Maybe it's not, and I just think it is.

And good God, you all are really getting knickers in a wad because you have to multiply by ten rather than 5,280? Is this another case of "we've always done it this way, therefore it's better, our nostalgia justifies everything?"

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
Is this another case of "we've always done it this way, therefore it's better, our nostalgia justifies everything?"

If you actually bother to read the thread, you'll notice the argument was started by a metricist. What the hell business of yours is it if I choose to do my cooking in ounces? Or buy sweets by the quarter pound?

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
When you say "quarto", there are several different sizes of quarto - it's an adjective rather than a defined size. But if you measure your paper, go for "Custom Size" in Word and input those measurements it ought to be able to handle it. (Famous last words, in theory it should work.)

It's the size that was always labelled quarto in UK stationers, alongside the foolscap. It's left over from my Dad's business, when he switched to A4. But I'll try custom - however, I'm not sure if the printer will like the texture.

I might use it for printing out the less attractive clauses from UKIP's manifesto to leave about the place come April.

See, I've got us back on stream!

[ 19. October 2014, 12:54: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
A duodecimal system would have been easier for calculations - 12 is divisible by several more factors than 10.

You don't actually understand why "10" is "10", do you? I can tell.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
A duodecimal system would have been easier for calculations - 12 is divisible by several more factors than 10.
You don't actually understand why "10" is "10", do you? I can tell.

I do, and I think Ariel makes a valid point. A base 12 number system would have been a far better reform than trying to make all measurements fit the rather awkward base 10 system. We'd need symbols to represent what are currently 10 and 11. Some might argue of course, than any increase in utility would not be worth the hassle and aggravation associated with making the change, but I'm sure our ardent metric enthusiasts will continue to hold that no sacrifice is too great for marginal gains in utility.

[ 19. October 2014, 13:58: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I'm not sure how you can proclaim something to be 'dead, dead, dead' when you have to use it extensively every time you get in your car? (Unless you ignore the speedometer and any road signs, which is of course possible...)

The problem is, of course the Little Englanders, who can't see beyond the White Cliffs. Yes, I have a speedo in mph, which is of fuck-all use almost anywhere else on the planet. Or off it. Roadsigns could post speed limits in perches per lunar month for all you care, just as long as Jonny Foreigner doesn't use the same units.

Dead. Give it up.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The problem is, of course the Little Englanders, who can't see beyond the White Cliffs. Yes, I have a speedo in mph, which is of fuck-all use almost anywhere else on the planet. Or off it. Roadsigns could post speed limits in perches per lunar month for all you care, just as long as Jonny Foreigner doesn't use the same units.

Dead. Give it up.

And if you should happen to be in a pub would you turn your nose up at a pint and demand a half litre?

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
A duodecimal system would have been easier for calculations - 12 is divisible by several more factors than 10.
You don't actually understand why "10" is "10", do you? I can tell.
I do, and I think Ariel makes a valid point. A base 12 number system would have been a far better reform than trying to make all measurements fit the rather awkward base 10 system. We'd need symbols to represent what are currently 10 and 11. Some might argue of course, than any increase in utility would not be worth the hassle and aggravation associated with making the change, but I'm sure our ardent metric enthusiasts will continue to hold that no sacrifice is too great for marginal gains in utility.

I agree with the point, and I get your sneaky veiled point.

That said I'm not sure 10=3*2*2 gets much advantage over 10=5*2. Hex is probably just as strong a rival. And of course it would be a regional adaption.

Whereas the combination of SI&decimal&internationalism really isn't a marginal gain.
It's a marginal gain in each individual case, but it really pays compound when cases combine*.

*at least if it wasn't for time being used so partially (for obvious reasons, unlike a foot a 'day' is actually pretty close to a day).

[ 19. October 2014, 16:07: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The problem is, of course the Little Englanders, who can't see beyond the White Cliffs. Yes, I have a speedo in mph, which is of fuck-all use almost anywhere else on the planet. Or off it. Roadsigns could post speed limits in perches per lunar month for all you care, just as long as Jonny Foreigner doesn't use the same units.

Dead. Give it up.
And if you should happen to be in a pub would you turn your nose up at a pint and demand a half litre?

I find it difficult to believe you're actually this ridiculous. Of course I drink pints. I drink half pints and drams and schooners and tots and all manner of other measures, and you know what? They're all defined in centilitres.

Would you refuse a half litre of beer? Would you refuse a bottle of wine because it's 75cl? I'm mentally competent enough to cope with different units, and still have a preference for metric. Imperial measures superseded earlier ones, and they are in turn superseded. Get over it.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

And what's more, you still have to use units of 7 indefinitely to calculate weeks, and units of 60 to calculate time in second and minutes, and there are still 360 degrees in a full circle, which, if it's a clock face, tends to be divided into 12 roughly equal portions of 30 degrees. I haven't noticed anyone calling for metrication of time or 10 months of equal length recently.

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
and there are still 360 degrees in a full circle, which, if it's a clock face, tends to be divided into 12 roughly equal portions of 30 degrees.

You stop using degree's after primary school now.

(actually I do have to convert back to get some feel for the angle which is pretty pathetic, but that's not the point)

[ 19. October 2014, 16:21: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Ariel:

quote:
I haven't noticed anyone calling for metrication of time or 10 months of equal length recently.

Well, it was tried: but it didn't catch on.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Would you refuse a half litre of beer?

I'd refuse any amount of beer - can't stand the stuff. But yes, I'd most likely make a point of asking for a half pint if it was something I actually liked.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
And what's more, you still have to use units of 7 indefinitely to calculate weeks, and units of 60 to calculate time in second and minutes, and there are still 360 degrees in a full circle, which, if it's a clock face, tends to be divided into 12 roughly equal portions of 30 degrees. I haven't noticed anyone calling for metrication of time or 10 months of equal length recently.

And the definition of a second is what?

You seem to be at a complete loss here: as if someone's pointed out the rugged tweed you once proudly scaled the Matterhorn wearing is as anachronistic as using log rollers to move big stones, and all you have is to mutter about how it was good enough for your grandparents, it's good enough for you.

And I'm sorry that no one has has ever taught you about the necessity for gross adjustments in the calender, about leap years and leap seconds, the differences between sidereal time and solar time, and all the other little tweaks that have to be made in order for a civilisation to function. It must be terrible to suffer so.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:

That said I'm not sure 10=3*2*2 gets much advantage over 10=5*2. Hex is probably just as strong a rival. And of course it would be a regional adaption.

On the contrary, hex is a bit rubbish, because you can only divide by powers of 2. 12 can be divided by 2,3,4 and 6 - it has the best factor to size ratio you're going to get, and that's vital in these sort of circumstances. Hex is great for writing binary numbers compactly, but not particularly for practical situations.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Doc Tor: Would you refuse a bottle of wine because it's 75cl?

Yes. Much too small.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

And I'm sorry that no one has has ever taught you about the necessity for gross adjustments in the calender, about leap years and leap seconds, the differences between sidereal time and solar time, and all the other little tweaks that have to be made in order for a civilisation to function. It must be terrible to suffer so.

None of which have anything to do with the units in which you choose to measure time. There is no reason for the solar year to be an integer multiple of the solar day (and it isn't), so if you want times of day that give you some hope of knowing whether it's light or dark outside, you automatically get leap years.

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:

...

On the contrary, hex is a bit rubbish, because you can only divide by powers of 2. 12 can be divided by 2,3,4 and 6 - it has the best factor to size ratio you're going to get, and that's vital in these sort of circumstances. Hex is great for writing binary numbers compactly, but not particularly for practical situations.

I should have changed the subject to weight before hand, then it would have turned out to have been very important all along (half joking, half well aware where the other 3 fingers are pointing)
Multiplication is nice in binary so I was hoping some of that would come through (but not sure).

[edited as I can't pull off repeated smileys in a day]

[ 19. October 2014, 19:25: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Bloody hell, even paper is measured in gsm.
Paper is measured in inches -- standard letter size paper is 8 1/2" x 11" -- and in pounds -- a ream (500 sheets) of 17x22 bond paper that weighs 20 pounds is known as 20-pound paper. Of course, that 17x20 sheet is four times as big as letter-size paper, so a ream of 20-pound bond paper weighs 5 pounds.

That 17x22 is a basis weight which varies by the type of paper, index or bristol paper have a different basis sizes.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Anyone know what I an do with a ream of good quality but slightly rough surfaced quarto typing paper? Can I get my computer to recognise it?

Unlike some posters, most home printers and software designed for printing usually are designed to us standard sizes that can be adjusted to deal with different size papers or slightly out of tolerance paper sizes.

Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :

You start introducing other number systems and things will get more confused (besides the issue of having to grow more fingers.)

Computer programmers have enough problem as it is confusing Halloween with Christmas:

code:

 31 OCT = 25 DEC

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
You start introducing other number systems and things will get more confused (besides the issue of having to grow more fingers.)

If we use binary then we can keep the same number of fingers and be able to count up to 1023, or rather 1111111111.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
You start introducing other number systems and things will get more confused (besides the issue of having to grow more fingers.)
If we use binary then we can keep the same number of fingers and be able to count up to 1023, or rather 1111111111.

I can't wait to see how you switch your fingers to the 'off' position.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
Is this another case of "we've always done it this way, therefore it's better, our nostalgia justifies everything?"
If you actually bother to read the thread, you'll notice the argument was started by a metricist. What the hell business of yours is it if I choose to do my cooking in ounces? Or buy sweets by the quarter pound?

1. And I've been clicking every link as well, thankyouverymuch.
2. Buuut Moooommm, heee started iiitttt!
3. What business is it of mine to want some standardization in the world and, say, not have to deal with stupid Imperial nuts and bolts when I own metric wrenches? What business of mine is it to want the world of commerce and industry to run a bit more smoothly? Given that I have to live in this world, a fair bit, actually.

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
If we use binary then we can keep the same number of fingers and be able to count up to 1023, or rather 1111111111.
I can't wait to see how you switch your fingers to the 'off' position.

Personally, I tap the fingers to my desk for 1, and lift them off for 0.

Do you ever wonder how many more years until the Imperial-insisting dinosaurs die off sufficiently so that we stop needing to listen to all the whining?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

^ I only get the whining on the internet. My particular English-speaking country managed to align with the rest of the planet before I was even born. The only contexts in which I'm likely to encounter Imperial are people's height and the weight of newborn babies.

And yes, I know this has turned us into a culinary wasteland where we can't follow any traditional recipes for American and English cuisine. We all have to make sacrifices.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
^ I only get the whining on the internet. My particular English-speaking country managed to align with the rest of the planet before I was even born.

Including, presumably, alignment on the bits where imperial's been internationally agreed?

Eg, at sea, depths are in metres, except for the large parts of the world that haven't been surveyed since the early 20th century, where you have to work in fathoms.

Meanwhile, speed is in knots (nautical miles per hour for the uninitiated), and distance is in fractional cables, cables (200yds), miles, then degrees, minutes, and seconds of latitude and longitude (which is why not only do you still need to know degrees if you're going to go to sea, but also spherical trigonometry, otherwise astro navigation is going to be a challenge).

So there's a whole technological world out there still merrily using imperial...

On a less international note, the British railway network is measured still in miles, as you might expect, but also still in chains when you go less than a mile...

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
You start introducing other number systems and things will get more confused (besides the issue of having to grow more fingers.)
If we use binary then we can keep the same number of fingers and be able to count up to 1023, or rather 1111111111.
I can't wait to see how you switch your fingers to the 'off' position.

I'm not going to take a photo, I'm afraid, but if you hold up both hands then extended fingers are "on" and curled fingers are "off". Very simple. I would usually start counting with the thumb of my right hand.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, I have a speedo in mph, which is of fuck-all use almost anywhere else on the planet.

Do you regularly need to drive anywhere else on the planet? For my part there are only a dozen or so times per year that I have to drive further than a hundred miles from my house, never mind to a whole other country.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
If we use binary then we can keep the same number of fingers and be able to count up to 1023, or rather 1111111111.
I can't wait to see how you switch your fingers to the 'off' position.
Personally, I tap the fingers to my desk for 1, and lift them off for 0.

Do you ever wonder how many more years until the Imperial-insisting dinosaurs die off sufficiently so that we stop needing to listen to all the whining?

Also, there's Imperial and there's imperial. IIRC many American imperial measure are not the same as British Imperial measures. US gallons are considerably smaller and I believe the standard definitions for things like inches and ounces are different too.

It's not like the French and Italian litres are different.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, I have a speedo in mph, which is of fuck-all use almost anywhere else on the planet.
Do you regularly need to drive anywhere else on the planet? For my part there are only a dozen or so times per year that I have to drive further than a hundred miles from my house, never mind to a whole other country.

And if the signs here were in kph, and the speedo in kph, then...

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, I have a speedo in mph, which is of fuck-all use almost anywhere else on the planet.
Do you regularly need to drive anywhere else on the planet? For my part there are only a dozen or so times per year that I have to drive further than a hundred miles from my house, never mind to a whole other country.
And if the signs here were in kph, and the speedo in kph, then...

...a lot of people would be asking 'is this really the best use of taxpayers' money?'

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, I have a speedo in mph, which is of fuck-all use almost anywhere else on the planet.
Do you regularly need to drive anywhere else on the planet? For my part there are only a dozen or so times per year that I have to drive further than a hundred miles from my house, never mind to a whole other country.
And if the signs here were in kph, and the speedo in kph, then...
...a lot of people would be asking 'is this really the best use of taxpayers' money?'

Such questions are most frequently asked by those who try to pay as little tax as possible.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, I have a speedo in mph, which is of fuck-all use almost anywhere else on the planet.
Do you regularly need to drive anywhere else on the planet? For my part there are only a dozen or so times per year that I have to drive further than a hundred miles from my house, never mind to a whole other country.
And if the signs here were in kph, and the speedo in kph, then...
...a lot of people would be asking 'is this really the best use of taxpayers' money?'

Maybe they would. On the other hand, think of the boost to GDP.

Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, I have a speedo in mph, which is of fuck-all use almost anywhere else on the planet.
Do you regularly need to drive anywhere else on the planet? For my part there are only a dozen or so times per year that I have to drive further than a hundred miles from my house, never mind to a whole other country.
And if the signs here were in kph, and the speedo in kph, then...
...a lot of people would be asking 'is this really the best use of taxpayers' money?'
Such questions are most frequently asked by those who try to pay as little tax as possible.

Trying not to waste taxpayers' money is not a bad thing. It is a very sensible thing to do.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.

It's functional to the extent that it's a system that people use and understand. If a roadsign says '14 kilometres' but a lot of people don't really have a feel for what 14 kilometres is, then it's not really functional, surely?

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
[qb] ...a lot of people would be asking 'is this really the best use of taxpayers' money?'
Such questions are most frequently asked by those who try to pay as little tax as possible.
Trying not to waste taxpayers' money is not a bad thing. It is a very sensible thing to do.

*tidies nesting*

I wouldn't disagree. It's just that those who who advocate not wasting it tend to include those who advocate not paying it in the first place. aka - neoliberals.

Posted by jbohn (# 8753) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.

Are speedometers there not marked in both MPH and km/h?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.
It's functional to the extent that it's a system that people use and understand. If a roadsign says '14 kilometres' but a lot of people don't really have a feel for what 14 kilometres is, then it's not really functional, surely?

An awful lot of people have no idea how far even a mile is. You really don't want to use this line of defence...

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.
Are speedometers there not marked in both MPH and km/h?

Actually yes, but mph is in big numbers on the outside of the dial, and kph is in little numbers on the inside - obviously for the use of those so very few British people who dare venture abroad.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
An awful lot of people have no idea how far even a mile is. You really don't want to use this line of defence...

It seems a perfectly sensible argument to me. Look, I accept that the metric system has made big in-roads into everyday life in Britain, especially with things like small measurements, the temperature, volume, and so forth. But lots and lots of people still think about large distances in terms of miles. This is probably largely because roadsigns are still in miles.

Do some people struggle estimating distances? Yes, I'm sure some do, but I'm sure more people have got an idea of what five miles looks like than what eight kilometres looks like.

Even putting aside issues like cost, ripping out every roadsign which has miles printed on it seems to work aggressively against the grain of how a great number of people naturally think. I don't understand why anyone would want to do that.

Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Even putting aside issues like cost, ripping out every roadsign which has miles printed on it seems to work aggressively against the grain of how a great number of people naturally think. I don't understand why anyone would want to do that.

Well because ripping out every road sign which has miles printed on it is just a totally stupid idea and always has been. What SHOULD have happened twenty or thirty years ago is that all new signs should have had both printed on them, then progressively phase out the miles signs on new road signs over a period of time. And how much work would it be for speed limit signs to have a K on it so that people new whether it was a new speed limit or an old speed limit when both are marked on cars?

Posted by Lucia (# 15201) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.
It's functional to the extent that it's a system that people use and understand. If a roadsign says '14 kilometres' but a lot of people don't really have a feel for what 14 kilometres is, then it's not really functional, surely?

This is just familiarity. After 8 years of living in countries with all distances marked in KM and a car speedo that tells me only kmph I think I've got as much of a feel for it as for miles. Actually I quite like KM, when you are traveling a long distance the numbers go down faster - good for keeping kids happy who keep asking 'Are we nearly there yet?' (Admittedly the number to start with is higher in KM, but hey, you can't have everything!)

The main argument against changing to KM in the UK is surely the cost involved. The majority of people would get used to it and those who grew up with it would not have a problem. I feel the same about other metric measures. If I'm weighing or measuring I'm quite happy with metric. That's what I grew up with. For temperature Fahrenheit doesn't really mean much to me. But I confess to knowing my weigh in pounds and my height in feet and inches better than their metric equivalents!

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

The real question is, how much benefit would we actually get for doing it? Very few of us would see any improvement, and many - myself included - would be worse off as we have to completely relearn how to estimate journey times. Not to mention the fact that the government would almost certainly take the opportunity to reduce the maximum speed at which we can drive.

Most of us don't go abroad frequently, and for the most part when we do we don't take our cars. Who would benefit from changing the entire road network to metric? Is there any point to it at all, other than "lots of other countries do it"?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I'm sure more people have got an idea of what five miles looks like than what eight kilometres looks like.

Even though I know, intellectually, that they're the same distance*, I can still picture one but not the other. And if someone asked me how far eight kilometres was, I'd still have to convert it to miles before saying "it's about the distance from here to the town centre".

.

*= well, nearly.

[ 20. October 2014, 16:41: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lucia:
The main argument against changing to KM in the UK is surely the cost involved.

No, the main argument against it is that there's no fucking point. What we've got works perfectly well. It ain't broke, so it don't need fixing.

Posted by jbohn (# 8753) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
Are speedometers there not marked in both MPH and km/h?
Actually yes, but mph is in big numbers on the outside of the dial, and kph is in little numbers on the inside - obviously for the use of those so very few British people who dare venture abroad.

Ah - same as ours, then. Thanks.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
You start introducing other number systems and things will get more confused (besides the issue of having to grow more fingers.)
If we use binary then we can keep the same number of fingers and be able to count up to 1023, or rather 1111111111.
I can't wait to see how you switch your fingers to the 'off' position.
I'm not going to take a photo, I'm afraid, but if you hold up both hands then extended fingers are "on" and curled fingers are "off". Very simple. I would usually start counting with the thumb of my right hand.

Except you're not "counting". You're adding base 2 figures in your head. And yes, combinations of 10 fingers might be enough to visually represent 1023 different numbers in base 2, but it's a pretty damn weird notion of counting involved which says "oh yes, that's my 2 to the 9th finger, that's my 2 to the 6th finger, my 2 to the 4th finger, 2 to the 3rd finger, so that makes..."

It's not anywhere near as intuitive as giving each of your fingers equal value.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Lucia:
The main argument against changing to KM in the UK is surely the cost involved.
No, the main argument against it is that there's no fucking point. What we've got works perfectly well. It ain't broke, so it don't need fixing.

Until the next crash of a spacecraft into Mars. 193 million dollars gone up in smoke because of having two different systems, if you want to talk about costs and whether there's any point.

What you've got works perfectly well so long as you live on your own little island and never talk to anyone else. Meanwhile, you're using the internet. So it's up to you. You can walk away now, or you can continue to live in the wider world.

[ 20. October 2014, 22:02: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
Are speedometers there not marked in both MPH and km/h?
Actually yes, but mph is in big numbers on the outside of the dial, and kph is in little numbers on the inside - obviously for the use of those so very few British people who dare venture abroad.
Ah - same as ours, then. Thanks.

I'm assuming, though, that made-for-Europe cars (like the Opal Mrs Tor briefly owned) don't have mph on their dials, and simply have to convert from kph if they drive in the UK.

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.

Perhaps - though I suspect you're severely underestimating people's capacity to care about trivial stuff.

But it's not clear to me what the big payoff is supposed to be in this area. It seems to me that road distances and speeds are among the things least likely to show benefits from conversion. They're not tradable goods; vehicles are easily modified for import and export*; and even the ease of sliding the decimal isn't worth much, since presumably there's as little need to convert from kilometers to meters while driving as there is from miles to yards.

*well, aside from the whole left/right thing, which wouldn't be solved by metrification anyway...

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
What we've got works perfectly well. It ain't broke, so it don't need fixing.

That's myopic as fuck, and an utter failure to consider reality. By such an argument, you'd have us transferring goods by oxen and communicating by written letters. Incremental improvements are how real improvements happen.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The real question is, how much benefit would we actually get for doing it? Very few of us would see any improvement, and many - myself included - would be worse off as we have to completely relearn how to estimate journey times. Not to mention the fact that the government would almost certainly take the opportunity to reduce the maximum speed at which we can drive.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

When I started this thread I sugggested that Nigel Farage and UKIP weren't blessed with a whole lot of integrity or humanity for that matter. It has become whingefest over measuring systems.

Has it actually been agreed that UKIPs policies and leadership are a nasty bunch, or does anyone have anything good to say for UKIP per se?

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Except you're not "counting". You're adding base 2 figures in your head. And yes, combinations of 10 fingers might be enough to visually represent 1023 different numbers in base 2, but it's a pretty damn weird notion of counting involved which says "oh yes, that's my 2 to the 9th finger, that's my 2 to the 6th finger, my 2 to the 4th finger, 2 to the 3rd finger, so that makes..."

It's not anywhere near as intuitive as giving each of your fingers equal value.

I don't recall claiming it was just as intuitive, it's clearly not. It is, however, still counting. I know this because I can change the pattern of fingers in a logical sequence, representing each whole number after the other. It's no different in principle from the odometer of a car. Would you deny that an odometer counts the number of miles travelled?

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Has it actually been agreed that UKIPs policies and leadership are a nasty bunch, or does anyone have anything good to say for UKIP per se?

Well, they've given Mike Read's career a new boost.

Oh. Wait.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Would you deny that an odometer counts the number of miles travelled?

Nope.

quote:
It's no different in principle from the odometer of a car.

What the fuck? That would be the odometer that uses base 10, you mean? All you're basically saying are that columns are columns. And that base 2 columns operate just like base 10 columns.

No shit. That still doesn't mean that your fingers operate like columns or rotate like an odometer. If they did, you could swish each of your fingers through 10 positions just as easily as you can rotate them through 2. But you can't, so it isn't at all the same, and your analytical skills are terrible.

[ 21. October 2014, 12:27: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Marvin:

quote:
Very few of us would see any improvement, and many - myself included - would be worse off as we have to completely relearn how to estimate journey times.

I don't usually bother trying to work out exactly how far away something is in either miles or kilometres. The important question is, how long will it take to get there? Where I live the answer to this question can vary a lot, depending on what time of day it is, whether there are any roadworks on the route, how many alternative ways of getting there exist and whether it's the school holidays (we have just as much traffic in the school holidays but at different times of the day).

quote:
Not to mention the fact that the government would almost certainly take the opportunity to reduce the maximum speed at which we can drive.

Well, they might. Or they might just do a straight conversion of mph to kph and wait for the applause from people who don't know the conversion rates and think they've increased the speed limit.

If they reduced the limit to 30 kph in built-up areas it would probably be good for the environment - and might encourage more people to switch to cycling, because a moderately fit cyclist can do 30 kph on a good road.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Sioni:

quote:
Has it actually been agreed that UKIPs policies and leadership are a nasty bunch, or does anyone have anything good to say for UKIP per se?

<makes an effort to find something positive to say about UKIP>

Well... they make the Tories look relatively sane, leading me to realise that things could be worse.

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
That still doesn't mean that your fingers operate like columns or rotate like an odometer. If they did, you could swish each of your fingers through 10 positions just as easily as you can rotate them through 2.

I can see that you kind of think this is true, but perhaps have lost sight of the possibility that this is only true for you. Learning to count in binary on one's fingers is not only possible, it's pretty easy. And, in fact, kind of common in my social circle.

Kind of like programming in python, really. Looks hard only to people who haven't bothered trying to learn.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Learning to count in binary on one's fingers is not only possible, it's pretty easy. And, in fact, kind of common in my social circle.

The interesting argument is whether it's right to count in straight binary or Gray code.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Yes, let's have an engineers v mathematicians battle alongside the for and against positions on Europe and metrication.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Doc Tor: I'm assuming, though, that made-for-Europe cars (like the Opal Mrs Tor briefly owned) don't have mph on their dials, and simply have to convert from kph if they drive in the UK.

Some of them have km/h in big letters and mph in small letters.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

You forgot the cyclists lobbying for lane diets, sane speed limits, and more bums on bikes.

Before anyone gets any bright ideas, given This Hellhost's known hobbies and passions: don't. I play with transit policy all day as it is, and you wouldn't like me when I'm grumpy.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Yes, let's have an engineers v mathematicians battle alongside the for and against positions on Europe and metrication.

That's never a fair fight. We mathematicians throw around ideas in n-dimensional space and maybe even launch projectiles made out of chalk (which invariably miss, as our idealised world has no air resistance) while engineers build the weapons that destroy the world!

Posted by Callan (# 525) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
When I started this thread I sugggested that Nigel Farage and UKIP weren't blessed with a whole lot of integrity or humanity for that matter. It has become whingefest over measuring systems.

Has it actually been agreed that UKIPs policies and leadership are a nasty bunch, or does anyone have anything good to say for UKIP per se?

The irony is that they all love Maggie. But if the EU is the ghastly tyranny they all claim then, surely, it would be better by far if Michael Foot had won the 1983 election. The fact is the last time a General Election was contested on an in-out basis the party of out got 28% of the vote and were comprehensively stuffed by the parties of in which got 68%.

As Mike Read might put it:

Oh yeah, we love Maggie, it's a painful irony.
For Michael Foot, we should have made a racket,
But we got distracted by his donkey jacket.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
That still doesn't mean that your fingers operate like columns or rotate like an odometer. If they did, you could swish each of your fingers through 10 positions just as easily as you can rotate them through 2.
I can see that you kind of think this is true, but perhaps have lost sight of the possibility that this is only true for you. Learning to count in binary on one's fingers is not only possible, it's pretty easy. And, in fact, kind of common in my social circle.

Kind of like programming in python, really. Looks hard only to people who haven't bothered trying to learn.

The paragraph you quoted has precious little to do with your response.

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The paragraph you quoted has precious little to do with your response.

The stance you are making has precious little to do with reality. Seemed appropriately absurd to highlight.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The paragraph you quoted has precious little to do with your response.
The stance you are making has precious little to do with reality. Seemed appropriately absurd to highlight.

The absurdity was the whole point. It's absurd to compare fingers to odometers. They don't operate on the same mechanical principles.

The other absurdity is comparing linear counting to column adding. How far can you count on fingers in base 10? You can count to 10 to the power of 1, because that's how many fingers you have. It is not the case that people operate their fingers as a 1s column, a 10s column, a 100s column and so on.

If you want to count in the same fashion in binary, the furthest you can get is 2 (or 11). Using 2 fingers. After that you're not counting in the same fashion. You're adding columns instead. It's not the same method and doesn't work in the same way.

[ 22. October 2014, 02:04: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

Oh, I see. You're arguing that you're an idiot.

There's this fabulous invention called "the internet", wherein one can search for - and learn about - all sorts of things. Google "counting in binary on your fingers". Feel free to choose either the many long-form descriptions, or the helpful videos.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Kind of like programming in python, really. Looks hard only to people who haven't bothered trying to learn.

I'm trying to learn to program in Python right now, and my fucking code won't work tonight, so it seems hard enough to me at the moment!

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Oh, I see. You're arguing that you're an idiot.

There's this fabulous invention called "the internet", wherein one can search for - and learn about - all sorts of things. Google "counting in binary on your fingers". Feel free to choose either the many long-form descriptions, or the helpful videos.

I'm not arguing it can't be done. I'm arguing it's not completely analogous. How-to videos aren't going to help.

It's completely stupid to argue "an odometer can count distance so therefore my fingers can perform binary calculations". That is the non sequitur that I was responding to.

[ 22. October 2014, 08:09: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

It's completely stupid to argue "an odometer can count distance so therefore my fingers can perform binary calculations". That is the non sequitur that I was responding to.

It's not a non-sequitur because that wasn't the argument, numbnuts.
a) we were talking about counting, not calculations in general
b) the comparison was between the way in which the dial on an odometer works (i.e. each column has a different value) is comparable to counting in binary on your fingers
c) they're transparently not completely analogous because one is base 2 and the other is base 10
d) counting with your fingers is not the same as counting your fingers

I didn't realise you were this fucking dense. If I had I'd have broken out the multi-link and mini-whiteboard for you. Can I just check, how many fingers do you have (it seems like it might be worth checking for a case of either "normal for Norfolk" or inability to actually count)?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
a) we were talking about counting, not calculations in general

Yes...

quote:

b) the comparison was between the way in which the dial on an odometer works (i.e. each column has a different value) is comparable to counting in binary on your fingers

Yes...

quote:
d) counting with your fingers is not the same as counting your fingers

Which is exactly my point. "Counting your fingers", as you call it, which most people just call COUNTING, is a sequential operation. And odometers also count sequentially.

I'm sure you can do binary calculations on your fingers. But are you seriously telling me you COUNT in binary, in the sequential style of an odometer, on your fingers? 00000 00001, then 00000 00010, then 00000 00011, then 00000 00100, and so on and so forth?

I bet you don't. And if you don't, then what you're doing isn't counting, and what you're doing isn't what an odometer does. A odometer just sits there rotating through digits in order and then as each column's mechanism goes from 9 back to 0 it triggers the movement of the next column along.

And if that IS what you do, it is mindbogglingly inefficient and is going to give you RSI in one of your little fingers.

The entire point of binary is that it is very useful for machines that operate in on/off states. It is not very useful for the kind of rotary mechanism involved in an odometer. Nor is it terribly good FOR COUNTING.

What you're actually talking about most of the time is representing numbers with your fingers. Of course you can do that with binary. I entirely agree you can represent numbers up to 1023 with your fingers using binary. Representing numbers isn't counting. Representing numbers isn't the function of an oodometer, it's just the displayed result.

This is precisely why I said, several posts ago:

quote:
All you're basically saying are that columns are columns. And that base 2 columns operate just like base 10 columns.

No shit.

It's mindbogglingly obvious. Columns are a method used in a massive variety of contexts to translate 10 available symbols into more than 10 numbers, or 2 available symbols into more than 2 numbers, or 16 available symbols into more than 16 numbers.

The fact that your fingers can represent columns is also mindbogglingly obvious. But that doesn't mean that your fingers operate "like an odometer". It just means your fingers operate in exactly the same way as every display of multi-symbol numbers on the entire planet. It just means that binary "10" means something different to binary "01", just as decimal "26" means something different to decimal "62".

[ 22. October 2014, 10:21: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But are you seriously telling me you COUNT in binary, in the sequential style of an odometer, on your fingers? 00000 00001, then 00000 00010, then 00000 00011, then 00000 00100, and so on and so forth?

I bet you don't. And if you don't, then what you're doing isn't counting, and what you're doing isn't what an odometer does.

It's not how I normally count, certainly (on account of having learned to count without using my fingers at all - don't worry, you'll get there one day), but I do it from time to time, and yes in the sequential way an odometer does. If it's not sequential it's not counting. Regardless of whether I actually do it or not it is certainly possible, which was what you were arguing against in the first place.

You seem to be arguing that because fingers can do other things than count like an odometer does that they cannot, in fact, count like an odometer. Talk about non-sequitur...

[ 22. October 2014, 11:00: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Regardless of whether I actually do it or not it is certainly possible, which was what you were arguing against in the first place.

Eh?

Emphasis added.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Regardless of whether I actually do it or not it is certainly possible, which was what you were arguing against in the first place.
Eh?

Emphasis added.

You were claiming that it was not possible to count in binary on your fingers.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Regardless of whether I actually do it or not it is certainly possible, which was what you were arguing against in the first place.
Eh?

Emphasis added.
You were claiming that it was not possible to count in binary on your fingers.

I repeat: eh?

Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on :

A friend at university was a mathematician and a trombone player. As the latter, he would often have to count many bars rest. So, he counted using his fingers in binary. You need to be able to move your fingers reasonably independently, but it is not actually complicated. A finger touching a surface is a '1' and not touching is a '0' (or vice-versa, of course).

More interesting would be to use a Gray code, where you only move one finger at each point. However, calculating what the number is from the positions of the fingers is much harder.

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

Let's be explicit:

I count to 30 on one hand in base-2 regularly. It's easy, and useful.

The progression of base-2 on the fingers is indeed like the columns on an odometer, but it's not as mind-blowing as you seem to be assuming. Though I would recommend the tapping of fingers over the extension of fingers, unless you have considerably more dexterous fingers than I.

And even though RuthW might have some compiler trouble with her python code, I'm sure she'll freely admit that python makes programming waaaaay easier than one might expect such a powerful language to be.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
The progression of base-2 on the fingers is indeed like the columns on an odometer

And like the columns on everything else, for heaven's sake.

Look...

..1
..2
..3
..4
..5
..6
..7
..8
..9
.10
.11
.12
.13
.14
.15
.16
.17
.18
.19
.20
.21
.22
.23
.24
.25
.26

LOOK MUM! I'M AN ODOMETER!

And I didn't suggest it was mind-blowing, I suggested it was finger-blowing. Tapping would help. I've been known to tap in base 10. You should try it sometime.

[ 22. October 2014, 14:07: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Dear all

You're really trying very, very hard to kill this thread, aren't you?

Sioni Sais
Hell host

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

He's finally onto me.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

My co-host and an admin are seriously having this discussion. This discussion is seriously taking place. Between those two.

Fuck this shit. It's not even 10:30—or 4:35, for those of you using decimal time—and I'm longing for a shot of Fernet.

Not enough chocolate in the world to make this worth it. Can't take it. Fuck you all and the 1.8 meter tall horses you rode in on.

Thread CLOSED.

—Ariston, Hellhost

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