Ship of Fools: A conspiracy against voters?

Thread: A conspiracy against voters? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

After a consultation which nobody knew about, they changed all the polling stations in this city.

The consultation suggested: Polling stations should be ‘logical’ i.e. wherever possible electors should not have to travel past another polling station to get to their own - I had to travel past THREE polling stations (And there would have been one at the end of my road, had it not been Ascension Day)

It’s not a mile – but nearly - .8 mile

[ 05. May 2016, 18:05: Message edited by: leo ]

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

I'd have thought slightly more worrying than walking a bit less than a mile is the prospect of being disenfranchised, as happened to a bunch of people in Barnet this morning.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

Are you sure you're in the U.K. and not in Arizona?

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

I was disgracefully and antidemocratically DISENFRANCHISED in the PCC election because my ballot paper wasn't big enough for me to spoil it properly.

Also the pencil wasn't sharp enough.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

You are making some serious allegations there ....

The Bishop ought to be told!

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

The Welsh voting system is interesting.

Each elector gets two votes; one for a constituency representative and one for the region - where the votes are combined to elect more Assembly Members.

But the party that actually wins in the regional poll may get no seats - in the South East Wales region, Labour won twice the votes than UKIP. The latter got two seats and the former got none.

The reason is that the votes in the regions are weighed against the constituency seats won.

Which, if one was being crafty, might encourage a party - let's say UKIP for the sake of argument - to encourage enough voters in the constituency poll not to vote UKIP (or possibly not to vote at all) to ensure that they don't win. Then if these people all vote UKIP in the regional poll, they get a higher proportion and then have a much better chance of getting their candidates in.

I'm no fan of FPTP, but that's utter madness. I'd be very surprised if that kind of tactic was not happening.

[ 06. May 2016, 08:52: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

It's the same system in use in Scotland. And, it works very well to balance the failures of FPTP at constituency level. Since the two votes are counted seperately it actually makes no sense to vote tactically in the way you suggest - if you want party A to get seats vote for party A on both ballots, they may do surprisingly well on the FPTP constituency ballot and get a seat, if not they get a second bite at the cherry on the regional list.

Where the system works very well is giving a second choice to electors in very safe seats. If party A has a very high chance of picking up all the constituency seats in your region then a list vote for party A is unlikely to return an additional member. That means that votes for smaller parties become very important. So, if you like party A and party B, but know that party A will get most of the constituency seats in the region then you vote A for your constituency (to make sure they do get in) and B for the list giving them a chance of a member too.

It's a system I really like. It has just managed to ensure the SNP don't have an outright majority of MSPs on less than 50% of the vote, but given the Greens enough to make up the difference (and the two parties are natural allies anyway). So, the Greens get a little bit of power to temper the SNP. The Tories somehow managed to beat Labour, and gain 25% of the seats which makes them a numerically credible opposition. If it was just FPTP like we're forced into for Westminster then the Scottish election would have gone a very similar way with 59 SNP MSPs, and 14 others with no credible opposition - and, that would be a disaster for democracy.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It's the same system in use in Scotland. And, it works very well to balance the failures of FPTP at constituency level. Since the two votes are counted seperately it actually makes no sense to vote tactically in the way you suggest - if you want party A to get seats vote for party A on both ballots, they may do surprisingly well on the FPTP constituency ballot and get a seat, if not they get a second bite at the cherry on the regional list.

Why doesn't it make sense to vote tactically? A single UKIP seat in the constituencies in the SE Wales constituency would have meant zero seats in the region. By winning none they're guaranteed seats.

Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Each elector gets two votes; one for a constituency representative and one for the region - where the votes are combined to elect more Assembly Members.

But the party that actually wins in the regional poll may get no seats - in the South East Wales region, Labour won twice the votes than UKIP. The latter got two seats and the former got none.

The reason is that the votes in the regions are weighed against the constituency seats won.

I don't understand what you mean here. Could you throw some figures in to illustrate your point?

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It's the same system in use in Scotland. And, it works very well to balance the failures of FPTP at constituency level. Since the two votes are counted seperately it actually makes no sense to vote tactically in the way you suggest - if you want party A to get seats vote for party A on both ballots, they may do surprisingly well on the FPTP constituency ballot and get a seat, if not they get a second bite at the cherry on the regional list.
Why doesn't it make sense to vote tactically? A single UKIP seat in the constituencies in the SE Wales constituency would have meant zero seats in the region. By winning none they're guaranteed seats.

But that's down to the numbers of people voting for them. The reason *not to bother* voting tactically is that the regional list is, as Alan says, a second bite of the cherry.

So, in your example, voting UKIP/UKIP in enough numbers means you might get someone elected for the constituency. If you don't then the second UKIP vote will count for the regional list. If you get through on the first list, then it is weighted down on the second. Not voting at all on the first list and then voting UKIP on the second isn't tactical voting, it's daft. *You might as well* have a go at both.

If enough people feel the same and vote UKIP but still not enough to get a constituency member then the numbers overall give you a list one. The d'Hondt system is admittedly complex, but encouraging tactical voting along the lines you're arguing isn't actually one of its faults.

There's no advantage (or sense) in a party not encouraging its supporters to use both their votes for it.

Sure, the regional list might in practice be where your seats come from, but you'll never know how you'd do in a constituency ballot if you tell people not to vote for you in one.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It's the same system in use in Scotland. And, it works very well to balance the failures of FPTP at constituency level. Since the two votes are counted seperately it actually makes no sense to vote tactically in the way you suggest - if you want party A to get seats vote for party A on both ballots, they may do surprisingly well on the FPTP constituency ballot and get a seat, if not they get a second bite at the cherry on the regional list.
Why doesn't it make sense to vote tactically? A single UKIP seat in the constituencies in the SE Wales constituency would have meant zero seats in the region. By winning none they're guaranteed seats.

No, a single UKIP seat in SE Wales would have meant they had one seat in the region. I've just had to look up the numbers (more familiar with Scottish regions and constituencies) South Wales East has 12 seats, 8 constituency seats and 4 additional members. To guarantee a seat a party would need to get 8% of the regional vote. But, if they already have a constituency seat they don't get that additional member. The only reason it would make sense to vote for different parties on the two ballots would be if you actually wanted representatives for two parties. You still have the same reasons for tactical voting on the constituency ballot as you have under the Westminster election system - Candidate A is favourite, but you don't like them, Candidate B is OK to you and has a good chance of beating A so you vote B even though Candidate C would be closest to your opinion.

For the regional lists the tactical options change. Because it's a top up list, if you suspect party C will get at least one member from the constituencies and are unlikely to get the 16% regional vote needed to get a second then maybe you think about a different option. Or, more likely, you know they'll pick up at least 6 constituency members and therefore no matter how many votes they get on the regional ballot are unlikely to pick up an additional member (that would require substantially over 50%), you can vote tactically by giving another party you like a chance.

So, there is still tactical voting. But the model you propose makes no sense. Though, much of tactical voting baffles me anyway.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

Yes:

In the South East Wales region,

UKIP got 2 seats, Tories got 1, Plaid got 1.

The votes were as follows:

UKIP 34,524
Tory 33,318
PC 29,686
Labour 74,424

There are 8 constituencies in South East Wales, of which Labour won 7, Tories won 1.

I don't know if there were any constituencies where PC or UKIP were a close second. But let's just say that in one of these, they were within a few hundred votes of the winner.

If UKIP or PC had actually been in a position to win any one of the constituencies, the calculation of regional seats would have been upset, to the extent that they wouldn't have won any (it is a calculation based on the number of constituencies won in the region, hence UKIP get the regional seats despite coming a distant second).

So it is actually in their interest not to win any of the constituencies in order to win bigger in the regions.

More to the point, 74,424 Labour votes entirely pointlessly voted in the region.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Sure, the regional list might in practice be where your seats come from, but you'll never know how you'd do in a constituency ballot if you tell people not to vote for you in one.

In addition, although constituency and list members are theoretically equal, getting through as a constituency member is the more prestigious position. It means that a substantial proportion of the electorate in a constituency voted for you, personally. Just ask Ruth Davidson and Kezia Dugdale.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
More to the point, 74,424 Labour votes entirely pointlessly voted in the region.

There is no such thing as a pointless vote cast. No such thing as a pointless vote cast. The only pointless vote is one that isn't used.

I'd have to do the maths. But, there would be a threshold at which, even with 7 members already, Labour would have picked up a list member. Probably around 100,000 votes at a guess. If they'd picked up another 30,000 then no one will be calling those 74,000 votes "pointless". They would be using words like "remarkable" and "unprecedented", but not "pointless".

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

OK well I've done the maths on the total constituency votes. Interestingly almost all the parties got less votes in the region than the total of the constituency votes, other than Labour who got more.

It'd be interesting to do this comparison for the whole of Wales. Maybe they already have somewhere.

[ 06. May 2016, 10:20: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

Seeing as this is a thread for moaning about local elections, can we have a moratorium on pundits speculating on whether the results are a triumph / disaster / mixed bag for Jeremy Corbyn?

The fact that Labour outnumber the Conservatives by about 2:1 in terms of council seats while trailing in the national polls would suggest that most voters are doing what they are supposed to do, and using the local elections to vote on local issues and not the parties in Westminster.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
More to the point, 74,424 Labour votes entirely pointlessly voted in the region.
There is no such thing as a pointless vote cast. No such thing as a pointless vote cast. The only pointless vote is one that isn't used.

That's as maybe, but to this Labour voter in South-East Wales, it feels like it. [Frown]

Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
In the South East Wales region,

UKIP got 2 seats, Tories got 1, Plaid got 1.

The votes were as follows:

UKIP 34,524
Tory 33,318
PC 29,686
Labour 74,424

There are 8 constituencies in South East Wales, of which Labour won 7, Tories won 1.

It seems to me that Lab did quite well out of this. They got 7 seats at about 10 or 11 thousand votes per seat. UKIP and Tories needed over 16000 for each of theirs, and poor old Plaid Cymru only got a single seat for all their 29000.

If the Tories had done what you suggested and "thrown" their directly elected seat would they somehow have ended up with more? And if Labour had won that direct seat instead of the Tories would Labour have had a different seat taken off them? I'm sure I am completely misunderstanding something because it makes no sense to me the way I see it at the moment.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:

If the Tories had done what you suggested and "thrown" their directly elected seat would they somehow have ended up with more?

Yes. I think they'd have got two and UKIP would have got two.

Looking at the numbers and the proportion of the vote overall in Wales, however, I have to admit that this system seems to do a pretty good job at smoothing out the inequalities caused by FPTP.

[ 06. May 2016, 13:38: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:

If the Tories had done what you suggested and "thrown" their directly elected seat would they somehow have ended up with more?
Yes. I think they'd have got two and UKIP would have got two.

Looking at the numbers and the proportion of the vote overall in Wales, however, I have to admit that this system seems to do a pretty good job at smoothing out the inequalities caused by FPTP.

Indeed, it does smooth out those inequalities. In fact it does it so well that one wonders why it isn't done for Westminster. Well, as ane fule kno that would make majority governments very unlikely and while central government likes to hamstring devolved assemblies and parliaments, it isn't going to do that to itself. Just look how the current Tory government has changed tack since the moderating influence of the LibDems was removed.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

I'd have to do the maths. But, there would be a threshold at which, even with 7 members already, Labour would have picked up a list member. Probably around 100,000 votes at a guess. If they'd picked up another 30,000 then no one will be calling those 74,000 votes "pointless". They would be using words like "remarkable" and "unprecedented", but not "pointless".

I'm not sure this is correct.

The first seat is allocated by weighting the votes against the number of FPTP seats plus one.

So in the above example, Labour has 7 seats and Tories have one. So for the first seat the calculation is:

Labour: 74,424/8 = 9,303
Tory: 33,318/2 = 16,659
PC 29,686/1 = 29,686
UKIP 34,524/1 = 34,524

So UKIP win that seat.

for the next, the winner has FPTP plus 2

So

Labour: 74,424/8 = 9,303
Tory: 33,318/2 = 16,659
PC 29,686/1 = 29,686
UKIP 34,524/2 = 17,262

So PC win that seat

The next one is another UKIP
And the final one is Tory.

I can't do the numbers in my head, but Labour would either need to win many multiples more than the opponents or win less constituencies to get a regional seat. With 7 seats and an overwhelmingly large percentage of the vote, they still didn't come close.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

Wow. And I thought the Electoral College was weird. (Well, it is, but there is obviously weirdness to go around.)

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:

Which, if one was being crafty, might encourage a party - let's say UKIP for the sake of argument - to encourage enough voters in the constituency poll not to vote UKIP (or possibly not to vote at all) to ensure that they don't win.

This doesn't work.

Say that UKIP got enough regional votes to get one seat. If they win a constituency, they end up with one AM (that constituency member). If they don't win a constituency, they'll get a regional top-up list member instead.

Either way, with about the same vote share, they get one AM.

The thing that you can do with the two-votes system that you can't do with a single-vote system is to vote for someone in your local constituency whilst voting for a different party.

So suppose you're a voter somewhere in South Wales East, and you really like your local constituency AM (who we'll call a member of the Labour party) and think he does a great job, but you prefer the policies of Plaid Cymru. You can express this by voting for your local Labour guy, and by voting Plaid in the regional vote (so when it comes time to hand out the regional top-ups, you count as a Plaid voter).

This doesn't quite reach your ideal, because there aren't enough regional top-ups to get pure proportionality, but it comes close.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:

If the Tories had done what you suggested and "thrown" their directly elected seat would they somehow have ended up with more?
Yes. I think they'd have got two and UKIP would have got two.

No, they'd get the same. They'd just get two regional seats instead of one regional and one constituency seat.

Actually, it depends who they threw the directly elected seat to. The seat in question is Monmouth, won by Nick Ramsay for the Tories with 43.3% of the vote. In second place was Labour's Catherine Fookes, with 26.9%. If they "threw" the seat to her, Labour would have 8 constituency AMs, and the 4 topups would be allocated 2 to UKIP, one to the Tories, and one to Plaid, just as in the real election (UKIP just edge out the Tories for the fourth seat).

If they threw the seat to either Plaid or UKIP, then the results would be the same overall as the real election (the Tories would pick up a second regional member, and either Plaid or UKIP would pick up one fewer.)

It is mathematically impossible to "throw" a constituency seat and end up with more seats overall.

It is mathematically possible (although not with these election results) to have the Tories throw the seat to an allied fringe party (let's call them the Conversatives), and pick up an extra regional seat like that.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
With 7 seats and an overwhelmingly large percentage of the vote, they still didn't come close.

Labour got 7 constituency seats and 43% of the total vote. That's not "overwhelmingly large".

Labour: 43% of vote, 58% of seats (7 constituency)
Tories: 19% of vote, 17% of seats (1 const., 1 list)
Plaid: 17% of vote, 8% of seats (1 list)
UKIP: 20% of vote, 17% of seats (2 list)

So basically Labour benefitted from, and Plaid got screwed over by, the FPTP element in the system. If Labour were to pick up the fourth top-up member in place of the Tories, they'd need another 70,000 or so Labour voters to turn out.

[ 06. May 2016, 19:10: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Seeing as this is a thread for moaning about local elections, can we have a moratorium on pundits speculating on whether the results are a triumph / disaster / mixed bag for Jeremy Corbyn?

The fact that Labour outnumber the Conservatives by about 2:1 in terms of council seats while trailing in the national polls would suggest that most voters are doing what they are supposed to do, and using the local elections to vote on local issues and not the parties in Westminster.

Actually yougov 26th April poll has Labour at 33% and Conservatives at 30% - which I think is roughly the vote share in the votes that just happened.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

So apparently there are irregularities in the London mayoral votes.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Actually yougov 26th April poll has Labour at 33% and Conservatives at 30% - which I think is roughly the vote share in the votes that just happened.

Modest loss in councillors by Labour and the Tories, modest gains by UKIP and the Lib Dems.

I don't see much there for anyone to get excited about, although doubtless everyone is busy claiming this as a huge victory.

Perhaps the biggest news is Scottish Labour being pushed into third place in the Scottish Parliament.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

London mayoral election has been declared - Sadiq Khan. To, by this point, no one's surprise at all.

[ 06. May 2016, 23:30: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

Women's Equality Party candidate did surprisingly well.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Seeing as this is a thread for moaning about local elections, can we have a moratorium on pundits speculating on whether the results are a triumph / disaster / mixed bag for Jeremy Corbyn?

The fact that Labour outnumber the Conservatives by about 2:1 in terms of council seats while trailing in the national polls would suggest that most voters are doing what they are supposed to do, and using the local elections to vote on local issues and not the parties in Westminster.
Actually yougov 26th April poll has Labour at 33% and Conservatives at 30% - which I think is roughly the vote share in the votes that just happened.

Wikipedia has a compilation of recent opinion polls which is surprisingly comprehensive, and which does unfortuantely confirm that Labour are still behind in the majority of recent polls, although by not nearly as much as the constant 'Jeremy Corbyn is a loonie who is leading his party to electoral suicide' reports would suggest.

As for the council elections, I can't find any statistics for each party's share of the vote, but in England Labour currently holds 1280 seats against 753 for the Conservatives. Unless there's some serious gerrymandering going on, or a bunch of Tory councils yet to declare, that gives Labour a lead of something like 3:2.

Meanwhile Mr Cameron says the results show Labour has completely lost touch with the public. Apparently the speechwriter gave him the 'speech to be read if the Labour vote completely collapses' and neither of them noticed that it hadn't. Or else he has finally succumbed to messianic syndrome and believes he merely has to speak to make it so.

[ 07. May 2016, 06:44: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

It's a common Conservative failing. In Scotland, Ruth Davidson has declared that there is no mandate for another independence referendum, ignoring the fact that pro-independence parties hold a majority of seats with 48% of the vote.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
More to the point, 74,424 Labour votes entirely pointlessly voted in the region.
There is no such thing as a pointless vote cast. No such thing as a pointless vote cast. The only pointless vote is one that isn't used.

That's as maybe, but to this Labour voter in South-East Wales, it feels like it.

I've just realised that there is a reason why those 74,000 votes weren't "wasted" (and, the same would apply to the 111,000 SNP votes in the Glasgow region). With that level of support for the region, if Labour had failed to get any of the constituencies they were guaranteed a list member. A leading party benefits from the two bites at the cherry as much as a small party like UKIP or Greens.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

To be honest, it also shows that no voting system is perfect. FPTP disenfranchises anyone who didn't vote for the winner, but gives good constituency representation. PR as practised in Scotland gives a more representative result but adds in list members who do not represent a locality (not to mention greater complexity). AV as rejected a few years ago is just gruesome!

ISTM that the greatest difficult arises when a sizeable minority is spread across a large area (and therefore gets no representation in the governing body) rather than within a smallish area (and thus gets disproportionate representation). This is especially true in FPTP, of course, A party could get 100k votes across 20 constituencies and win nothing; but it might win 5 seats if those votes were all concentrated in ne small area.

Things would be helped if Governments/Councils reflected to a greater degree the views of those opposing them. Of course they must advocate and prosecute their own policies, that's why they got in. But a little listening would not go amiss.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
To be honest, it also shows that no voting system is perfect.

No, nothing's perfect. But, it is possible to have a system that is less-worse. And, there is good reason to say that different systems are preferable for different types of election.

quote:
FPTP disenfranchises anyone who didn't vote for the winner, but gives good constituency representation. PR as practised in Scotland gives a more representative result but adds in list members who do not represent a locality

The system in Scotland combines both FPTP and a form of regional something-not-really-PR. Of course, the list members represent a locality, just a locality that is larger than constituencies. And, because it's a top up system it isn't PR anyway otherwise in Glasgow the SNP would have picked up 3 list members as well (with just under 50% of the regional vote and 7 list members for Glasgow). So, if you live in Glasgow and want to contact your MSP you have the choice of your SNP constituency MSP or one of the MSPs for the other parties elected from the lists.

It is, IMO, a pretty good system. It has some complications in the calculation of top up MSPs, but nothing that can't be done on a bit of paper even though they probably rely on a computer to do the calculation. But, it's a very simple voting procedure.

quote:
AV as rejected a few years ago is just gruesome!

It's gruesome for electing a local member for a council, assembly or Parliament. It's actually a pretty good system for a Presidential style election as it allows people to vote for the candidate they really like the best first, and still have a vote for one of the candidates who actually have a real chance. The first vote then gives a good indication of the real popularity of each candidate, the second allows one candidate to be elected with a clear verdict of "acceptable" from the electorate.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Well, Labour got in here as mayor and also with a massive majority on the council.

The only thing we didn't get was police commissioner but i don't reckon they're worth bothering about.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

So what do we think the impact of police investigations into the conduct of campaigns by 20 tory MPs is going to be - on our government with a 12 seat majority ?

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

I'd like to believe that the Police and prosecutors will follow the money wherever it leads.

But over here in the Real World, I think it is pretty unlikely there will ever be anyone held to account at Tory HQ.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

Just reading through the thread I think that some people are missing an important point.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that every seat in England was up for grabs last week. Taking England only, it was the seats from 2012 which came up, and Labour went into the election with more seats than the Tories - because last week skewed towards metropolitan areas where Labour is ahead anyway. After the election, the Tories were down 48 councillors, and Labour down 18.

Without parroting the Central Office line, given the councils which were up for grabs it was Labour's to lose last week. In 2 years time there's an equivalent one where virtually everything up for grabs is a Tory council.

That's why even Jeremy came out with the "holding on in England line"

The final tally from last Thursday was 1326 Labour vs 842 Tory. Essentially, nothing really changed (although obviously both parties were slightly down) on the position before last Thursday.

If every mayor, district,county, unitary and metropolitan council seat had been up for grabs last week, and every council had done the same (ie not much change overall) then the numbers would still be something like:

Tory: 8,088
Labour: 7,010

Labour are ahead in the seats contested last week, which was the position anyway before Thursday. They are not the largest party in English local government, however.

[ 10. May 2016, 06:20: Message edited by: betjemaniac ]

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

In fact, the BBC has a lovely map showing quite how few people in England voted for anything other than a police and crime commissioner last week.

Significantly, amongst the "no election" grey is a big red splodge across Labour's NW heartlands, and another in the NE. From that map, as usual, where there was an election, urban areas went red, rural areas and small towns blue.

colour me surprised.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

Does anyone know the turnout figures ?

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Does anyone know the turnout figures ?

slightly oddly it's not in my link above - Wales and Scotland are. I imagine it was, er, variable.

My own council was an anomaly in that it was a shire DC with boundary changes, so every single seat was up for grabs. This led to a higher turnout, and no change overall. The DC next door didn't have any seats up for election at all.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

They weren't in any of the election reporting either, except for the mayoral election - which I find quite odd. I think they are important for giving any result its context.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

Betjemaniac - thanks, that makes better sense of the results and the reaction to them.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
They weren't in any of the election reporting either, except for the mayoral election - which I find quite odd. I think they are important for giving any result its context.

Each council website (at least, the few I've looked at) seem to have the turnout figures, but it's hard work to get there. Random example Rotherham has turn out for each ward, and you have to go through them one at a time ... 37.5%, 38.1%, 31.9% ...

But, I can't find any national news outlet giving that information. Local media (another random example Liverpool Echo - 31.4%) seem to be the only news source for those numbers.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

Birmingham appears to be something in the early thirties too (form the Brimingham Mail site) - I do think the national average turnout should be reported though.

(I think above 30% is quite high for local elections - what do you think ?)

[ 10. May 2016, 09:41: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

I think it's a sad reflection on our national attitude to elections if a turn out of over 30% is considered "quite high" for any election. I bet that many of those 60% who didn't vote will still complain about pot holes and the bins not being emptied often enough.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
AV as rejected a few years ago is just gruesome!

On behalf of a country that has been happily using preferential voting for longer than either of us have been alive: [Roll Eyes]

Complete and utter bullshit was involved in the 'No' campaign you had. It was bizarre.

And no thanks to Alan for agreeing with you that it's gruesome for a local member. Funny, we've been managing to elect local members with it for nearly a century now nationally, and in some places well over a century. No fancy electronic systems were required, and any slowness in results was caused by having to collect them across an electorate larger than your entire fucking country!

[ 10. May 2016, 11:39: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

There was quite a lot of nonsense on the other side too.

Just wait until the EU referendum campaign gets into full swing now this round of elections is over. The amount of complete and utter bullshit produced will be astounding.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And no thanks to Alan for agreeing with you that it's gruesome for a local member. Funny, we've been managing to elect local members with it for nearly a century now nationally, and in some places well over a century.

Gruesome wouldn't have been my first choice of terms. But, for those of us seeking significant reform of Westminster to produce a Parliament that is more proportionally representative of the views of the nation then AV was barely better than FPTP. They'll both favour the large parties and smaller parties will still miss out on Parliamentary seats.

As I said, AV is a very good system for electing a single person given that you can't have parts of people. So, for a Presidential election, or a Mayor. And, yes I know that we elect a single person as our MP, even though usually it's a vote for the colour of the rosette rather than the person. Which is exactly the problem with the current Westminster Parliamentary system, we go to vote for a single local member and a government on a single ballot paper. AV is marginally less "gruesome" than FPTP.

A better option, IMO, would be to ditch the constituencies entirely, and have a fully proportional vote for our government. But, that would loose our local representative. So, even better IMO is an additional member system, with a proportionally elected top up on top of constituencies. In that system, I would prefer AV over FPTP for the constituency part of the vote.

The problem I had with the options on the voting referendum wasn't particularly with AV as a method of electing constituency MPs. The problem was that both options we were given were for electing a Parliament consisting of only constituency MPs. If that was what we're stuck with for the Commons then a proportionally elected Upper House to help balance out the disproportionality of constituency MPs. Which I think I'm right in saying you have?

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I think it's a sad reflection on our national attitude to elections if a turn out of over 30% is considered "quite high" for any election. I bet that many of those 60% who didn't vote will still complain about pot holes and the bins not being emptied often enough.

Voting is compulsory here in Federal and State elections. In my State it's compulsory for local govt elections as well - can't speak for other States. Many debates about this over the years with US friends, but in the long run I'd say that it's part of a democratic system and a necessary price for citizenship.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Birmingham appears to be something in the early thirties too (form the Brimingham Mail site) - I do think the national average turnout should be reported though.

(I think above 30% is quite high for local elections - what do you think ?)

We didn't have local (ie, council) elections in Wales but the turnout for the Welsh Assembly was just over some 45%, and I think it increased in every constituency. A sunny evening and the referendum just a few weeks away may have played their parts.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, for those of us seeking significant reform of Westminster to produce a Parliament that is more proportionally representative of the views of the nation then AV was barely better than FPTP. They'll both favour the large parties and smaller parties will still miss out on Parliamentary seats.

I have a feeling that AV is actually less proportionally representative than FPTP in that if the last election had taken place under AV, UKIP and the Greens could plausibly have ended up with zero seats instead of one each.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

It's difficult to know how elections would turn out under different systems, but if the second choice of people who chose a minor party candidate for their primary vote is predominantly for one of the 2 or 3 major parties then that will almost always squeeze the other larger parties. It could be particularly relevant in Scotland. In Orkney and Shetland and Dumfries the SNP were behind by less than 1000 votes, in Edinburgh South a little less than 3000. If the SNP dominated the (hypothetical) second vote of those who voted for candidates at the bottom of the returns those three constituencies could conceivably all gone to the SNP. Of course, it's unlikely that a UKIP voter would put the SNP on their options at all, but Green voters certainly could have.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

A better option, IMO, would be to ditch the constituencies entirely, and have a fully proportional vote for our government.

An enormous weakness of any kind of list system is that it doesn't offer the electorate a chance to vote out one particularly obnoxious individual, if that person is placed highly on his party's list.

I consider that important enough to reject any kind of list system. The consequence of this choice is that to get sensible PR, you need a rather complicated ballot, which has its own downsides.

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :

I have, on quite a few occasions, voted for specific constituency cndidates rather than for a party. This has generally been because I have been in constituencies where the two main parties have stood no chance of winning. On one occasion I was voting against a truly horrendous constituency MP, and would have done so whatever party she belonged to.

It therefore matters very much to me that I am voting for a person and not just a party.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

You can still elect a single member representative per constituency by using the single transferable vote.

Quite why this hasn't been introduced yet is beyond me (other than it didn't suit the two main parties). It's easy to understand, takes no more paperwork than what we have, and takes only marginally longer to count.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

Meanwhile, back in the Welsh Assembly, there is a bit of a crisis with the opposition parties refusing to vote in Carwyn Jones as the Labour First Minister.

Labour do not quite have a majority and with the single Liberal Democrat, they have equal votes as all the other parties voting together.

Which has led to a rather strange coalition of convenience made up of PC, UKIP and the Tories.

I wouldn't be surprised if this went to a second election. It seems highly unlikely that PC could hold together a minority administration if it was relying on support from UKIP and the Cons (who, one would think, were very unlikely political bedfellows), and Labour clearly can't run the show if everyone else can vote them down whenever they feel like it.

The sole Lib Dem seems to be in the driving seat. I can't really see LD Kirsty Williams supporting a minority administration when there is a much bigger Labour group, and she can get the moral points for not getting in with UKIP and the Tories.

Unless one or more PC members decides to jump ship to support Labour, it doesn't look like it will be possible to form a stable Labour administration.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Spot-on mr cheesy. Btw, the Assembly members have 28 days to elect a First Minister and if they don't have one by then, fresh elections could be ordered by the Welsh Secretary. I suppose he'll take sounding from the Welsh Conservatives as any subsequent election would take place after the referendum.

Plaid Cymru deny that the pact with the Tories and UKIP was designed to give Labour a bloody nose but have said that Labour has been "arrogant", a much loved word in Welsh politics. However, if that doesn't mean they wanted to give Labour a bloody nose, do let me know.

[ 11. May 2016, 21:52: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

I find it a little odd they elect the first minister - does that happen in the NI and Scottish assemblies too ?

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

In the Scottish Parliament, the First Minister is nominated by the Parliament on the basis of an exhaustive ballot. Though in theory anyone could be put forward as a candidate on that, in the current make up anyone other than Nicola Sturgeon would be seen as making a mockery of the system. I'm not even sure if it will be contested.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
You can still elect a single member representative per constituency by using the single transferable vote.

Sure, but that doesn't get you PR. It gets you a consensus winner in your constituency, and you can make a good case that that's a "better" result than the plurality winner, but it doesn't get you any closer to PR.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

STV for 2-3 member constituencies would be another approach that would maintain constituency links while introducing a more proportional Parliament. Of course, unless you significantly enlarge the parliament that means larger constituencies.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

I've been reading an excellent book about mathematics called "Chaotic Fishponds and Mirror Universes". It has a god chapter on voting systems, showing why no system can ever be perfect in a real world. This is partly because people with different preferences are not distributed randomly around a country but clustered in certain areas.

What's clear is that a perfect PR system could not have any local connections. And the author shows have transferable vote systems can end up delivering the "wrong" result too.

He also makes an intriguing observation about FPTP. If there are 1000 candidates, and each one receives a single vote with the exception of one who gets none and another who gets two, then the one with 2 votes gets in even though 998 people didn't vote for them! That may be reduction ad absurdum but it's interesting!

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

I'm not sure anyone expects perfect, the least bad would be nice though. Even the not quite so bad as the current system (which is why I voted Yes to AV, even though it's not what I wanted it's an improvement over FPTP).

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
You can still elect a single member representative per constituency by using the single transferable vote.
Sure, but that doesn't get you PR. It gets you a consensus winner in your constituency, and you can make a good case that that's a "better" result than the plurality winner, but it doesn't get you any closer to PR.

That depends on what you mean by PR. STV in single member constituencies doesn't give proportional representation but it is a preferential system which usually benefits centrist parties. It would probably benefit the LibDems and Plaid Cymru (and possibly the Greens) but do UKIP no favours at all.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

The STV system is used in NSW and Federal elections for the lower house and is called the preferential system. The experience here is not that it has benefitted centrist parties, but provides (amongst other things) a method to give a vote on a particular issue to a single issue type candidate without damaging the chances of a major party for which you might otherwise vote. For example, the first Federal election in which I voted was 1969, when 21 was the minimum voting age. I voted first preference for a group called Liberal Reform, founded by Gordon Barton in opposition to the Vietnam War and Aust involvement in it. I gave my second preference to the Labor Party, which came in second in the electorate*. Since then have always given the first preference to the Labor party, it always being a lost vote.

In the Senate and the NSW Upper House, the Hare-Clarke system is used, the whole State being in effect a single electorate and multiple members being returned The common name for that system is proportional voting.

*Our electorate is traditionally the safest seat nationally for the non-Labor side

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
There was quite a lot of nonsense on the other side too.

Just wait until the EU referendum campaign gets into full swing now this round of elections is over. The amount of complete and utter bullshit produced will be astounding.

From your post to IDS and Boris' ears. The sight of IDS saying that the EU makes poorer people worse off was just ... I missed Boris singing thank goodnesses. How many months of this nonsense do we have to go?

Tubbs

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
STV in single member constituencies doesn't give proportional representation but it is a preferential system which usually benefits centrist parties. It would probably benefit the LibDems and Plaid Cymru (and possibly the Greens) but do UKIP no favours at all.

I don't think that's very likely with the current political parties. It's more likely to benefit Labour: the smaller vaguely-left parties will be eliminated early in the STV process, and their votes will presumably transfer to the Labour candidate in preference to the Conservative candidiate.

ETA: This is under the assumption that Labour and the Tories are the two largest parties. That assumption is false for Wales and Scotland. In the case of Wales, perhaps PC benefits (it depends whether Tory voters prefer PC over Labour).

Sounds like Gee D's experience more or less agrees with this.

If you want to favour the centrist candidates, you want something like ranked pairs rather than STV. (The ballot form looks the same, but the counting method is different.)

The consequence of this method is that if you have a large right-wing party, a large left-wing party, and a small centrist party which only attracts maybe 10-15% of the first preference votes, ranked pairs (or some other Condorcet method) will tend to elect lots of centrists, whereas STV will elect lots of whichever of the extreme parties is preferred by the centrists.

A proportional method would elect lots of each of the righties and lefties, and a small number of centrists.

[ 12. May 2016, 13:57: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
How many months of this nonsense do we have to go?

If you mean the EU referendum, it's a matter of weeks until 23 June. If the media is to be believed, our votes will ensure that Britain will go bust, World War 3 will break out, and the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will gallop across the land.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

I notice the leave campaign are now threatening ITV, which seems unwise.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I notice the leave campaign are now threatening ITV, which seems unwise.

For a while you had me wondering what kind of voting scheme that was...

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The consequence of this method is that if you have a large right-wing party, a large left-wing party, and a small centrist party which only attracts maybe 10-15% of the first preference votes, ranked pairs (or some other Condorcet method) will tend to elect lots of centrists, whereas STV will elect lots of whichever of the extreme parties is preferred by the centrists.
[/QB]

Though there is a second order affect even with STV.
A FPTP vote, is not the same as a 'first preference' vote. So you could find for example that actually 40% of people wanted a centrist/extreme party and disliked the other extreme, but had to vote for the 'larger' party.

NB I think all parties played that 'opposition' card in at least one constituency (normally with a very lying graph), so think I can make that distinction.

Mind you then that would still only be for the MP, so to some extent the voters are still held to ransom.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I notice the leave campaign are now threatening ITV, which seems unwise.

While warning of 'consequences' is perhaps de trop, ITV don't appear to have acquitted themselves well in all of this.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I notice the leave campaign are now threatening ITV, which seems unwise.

Which Leave campaign would that be? I understand UKIP have their own.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I notice the leave campaign are now threatening ITV, which seems unwise.
Which Leave campaign would that be? I understand UKIP have their own.

Vote Leave, which is the official Leave campaign.

Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :

Cameron is urging us to vote Yes to a reformed Europe.

Problem is that he has failed miserably to get any significant reforms in the past. And it is unlikely that he will get any reforms in the future.

If significant reform is ruled out as a matter of practical politics from the beginning why on earth should we vote Yes?

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I notice the leave campaign are now threatening ITV, which seems unwise.
For a while you had me wondering what kind of voting scheme that was...

Infinitely Transferable Vote. The preference expressed by each voter is constantly shuffled between candidates in a count that never ends. The result is no candidate gets elected - which has the benefit as "none of the above" would have been the choice of the vast majority of reasonable people anyway.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, for those of us seeking significant reform of Westminster to produce a Parliament that is more proportionally representative of the views of the nation then AV was barely better than FPTP. They'll both favour the large parties and smaller parties will still miss out on Parliamentary seats.
I have a feeling that AV is actually less proportionally representative than FPTP in that if the last election had taken place under AV, UKIP and the Greens could plausibly have ended up with zero seats instead of one each.

Guessing how people would have voted if they didn't have to engage in the kind of tactical exercises caused by FPTP is rather fraught with danger.

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I notice the leave campaign are now threatening ITV, which seems unwise.

Apparently only Gove and Boris can "debate the issue properly". This could be an interesting, but short, debate given they're both on the same side [brick wall]

Whether Boris and Gove like it or not, in terms of being the face of leaving the EU, Nigel has that one covered. They're just the Johnny Come Latelies. (Er, shameless career building opportunists ... Unless they lose, in which case, we can have a sweep stake on how long it takes them either to complain that the result isn't fair and demand a re-do OR that they were duped and the EU is the best thing ever. Each time I wonder if they could be more vile, they are).

Tubbs

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Cameron is urging us to vote Yes to a reformed Europe.

Problem is that he has failed miserably to get any significant reforms in the past. And it is unlikely that he will get any reforms in the future.

If significant reform is ruled out as a matter of practical politics from the beginning why on earth should we vote Yes?

Cameron's deals were a crock of the proverbial and fooled no one so you're right as far as that but the shambles we have in the EU is a bloody sight better than any shambles we will have out. Especially with the "outies", like Farage, Boris, Gove, IDS etc negotiating the exit and future bilateral deals on our behalf.

[ 13. May 2016, 12:16: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Cameron is urging us to vote Yes to a reformed Europe.

Problem is that he has failed miserably to get any significant reforms in the past. And it is unlikely that he will get any reforms in the future.

If significant reform is ruled out as a matter of practical politics from the beginning why on earth should we vote Yes?
Cameron's deals were a crock of the proverbial and fooled no one so you're right as far as that but the shambles we have in the EU is a bloody sight better than any shambles we will have out. Especially with the "outies", like Farage, Boris, Gove, IDS etc negotiating the exit and future bilateral deals on our behalf.

Besides what would leaving actually get us? We'd lose many of the things that EU membership gets us. Things like ...

Cheap air fares
Not having to apply for visas or hang about at passport control in Europe
Cheaper goods and services, plus the ability to sell into the EU without actually having offices there
The ability to work elsewhere in the EU if we want.
Grants for random stuff like academic research, infrastructure projects or farms
Shitloads of jobs

And the disappearence of Nigel Farage from public life. UKIP aren't a bunch of fearless marvericks, they're a bunch of failed Tory chancers. (As the leadership of their group ion the Welsh Parliament proves beautifully).

Besides, last time I looked they were proposing a solution similar to the one adopted by Norway. One that most Norwegians don't like. Where they enact much of the EU legislation to remain inline with the rest of Europe and contribute to the EU budget in order to access the EU market but don't have a say the drafting of that law. How on earth is that a better solution than the one we have?

Tubbs

[ 13. May 2016, 13:45: Message edited by: Tubbs ]

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
last time I looked they were proposing a solution similar to the one adopted by Norway. One that most Norwegians don't like. Where they enact much of the EU legislation to remain inline with the rest of Europe and contribute to the EU budget in order to access the EU market but don't have a say the drafting of that law.

Tubbs

It's not actually quite that straightforward though - if you want to send yourself to sleep I can really recommend trying to get to grips with the Norwegian debate as it happens in Norway...

There is a figure of 75% that gets bandied around by both people trying to say "Norway has to do all the EU stuff anyway" and by the pro-EU camp in Norway - saying "we have to enact all this stuff, wouldn't it be better to influence it as well?"

On the other hand, the Norwegian outers (who, let's remember are the establishment in this debate given that Norway is out, and that's what the majority have voted for) give a figure of 9%.

Obviously, you can make stats say whatever you like, but it is a completely mainstream view in Norway, supported by some supporters of the status quo, that the figure of EU laws they have to enact is less than 10%.

I'm not climbing down off the fence on either side but it is salutary to note that there is another side to the Norway argument rather than just "they have to do everything the EU says anyway."

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
last time I looked they were proposing a solution similar to the one adopted by Norway. One that most Norwegians don't like. Where they enact much of the EU legislation to remain inline with the rest of Europe and contribute to the EU budget in order to access the EU market but don't have a say the drafting of that law.

Tubbs
It's not actually quite that straightforward though - if you want to send yourself to sleep I can really recommend trying to get to grips with the Norwegian debate as it happens in Norway...

There is a figure of 75% that gets bandied around by both people trying to say "Norway has to do all the EU stuff anyway" and by the pro-EU camp in Norway - saying "we have to enact all this stuff, wouldn't it be better to influence it as well?"

On the other hand, the Norwegian outers (who, let's remember are the establishment in this debate given that Norway is out, and that's what the majority have voted for) give a figure of 9%.

Obviously, you can make stats say whatever you like, but it is a completely mainstream view in Norway, supported by some supporters of the status quo, that the figure of EU laws they have to enact is less than 10%.

I'm not climbing down off the fence on either side but it is salutary to note that there is another side to the Norway argument rather than just "they have to do everything the EU says anyway."

True that, but my understanding is that many Norwegians don't like the status quo as it stands as they're still having to enact laws they don't actually have any influence over. Paerticularly as some of the laws are biggies. Besides, most of our laws probably don't come from the EU either. Reguardsless of what the Daily Express and the Mail tell us.

Tubbs

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Apropos Norway one has to note that the UK and Norway are as different as countries no more than a few hundred miles apart can be. The UK is an post-industrial, post-colonial and heavily populated country with immense wealth and income disparity which Norway simply isn't. Norway also has more energy than it knows what to do with, hardly needing oil and gas thanks to hydroelectricity.

I could go on. Thanks to Norwegians now and in the past, Norwaycan afford to pick and choose.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I have to admit I agree with Shamwari's post.

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Besides what would leaving actually get us? We'd lose many of the things that EU membership gets us. Things like ...

Cheap air fares
Not having to apply for visas or hang about at passport control in Europe
Cheaper goods and services, plus the ability to sell into the EU without actually having offices there
The ability to work elsewhere in the EU if we want.
Grants for random stuff like academic research, infrastructure projects or farms
Shitloads of jobs

We would probably still have cheap air fares. As for the ability to work elsewhere in the EU, most of the population don't (do you personally have plans to live and work in a country where the first language isn't English? Never mind "I might do", we all "might do" but in practice most of us don't). As for the grants for the random stuff, I don't know what the proportion of research projects that actually provide useful stuff as opposed to minor or dead ends is.

I also haven't noticed huge quantities of jobs here in Britain thanks to the EU. Are they usually jobs that need specialist knowledge in a field most people aren't qualified for?

I still haven't decided which way to vote. Neither option currently sounds great.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I don't know what the proportion of research projects that actually provide useful stuff as opposed to minor or dead ends is.

I would say that developing standards that ensure the structural resilience of buildings during earthquakes is quite a useful RL products.

There are quite a number of troublesome natural phenomena which are curiously indifferent to national boundaries, and only the combined efforts of scientists across transnationally can address them - and for that you need transnational funding.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:

There are quite a number of troublesome natural phenomena which are curiously indifferent to national boundaries, and only the combined efforts of scientists across transnationally can address them - and for that you need transnational funding.

Actually, you don't. There are plenty of examples of international collaboration involving a number of scientists from a number of countries, with the work being supported by grant awarding bodies in the individual countries.

Some things might be easier with an EU grant rather than smaller grants from each of four countries, but to say that EU funding is necessary is too strong.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Generally EU funding is a relatively small amount of the cost of the research, the majority of the cost is still borne by the different government funding schemes (and, in some cases charitable trusts) in different countries. EU funding succeeds very well in two areas:
1. some basic core funding to help the networks needed for high quality science to flourish. A small amount of salary costs for coordination, but mostly covering travel expenses to bring scientists together, costs of producing and distributing reports on research findings and priorities, and a longer term funding scheme that means that the work isn't constantly stopping and starting as a result of the different timescales of national funding.
2. mobility grants, especially for early career scientists, allowing them to spend a few years working in a university or other research institute in a different EU country. These will often be rolled into the larger coordinating style projects as well.

The second of those will be much less practical if UK scientists need to obtain visas to work in the EU, and vice versa. Of course, scientists will still be mobile, it's a part of the nature of science (he says while working for a Japanese university). But, at the moment the majority of UK scientists who spend some time working overseas do so in the rest of the EU - a combination of the EU fellowships, and the freedom of movement inherent in the common market. Would as many do that if they needed a visa? Would EU universities want to handle the paperwork for hiring a lot of non-EU researchers, would UK universities want to handle that for all non-UK staff?

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I also haven't noticed huge quantities of jobs here in Britain thanks to the EU. Are they usually jobs that need specialist knowledge in a field most people aren't qualified for?

I assume the reference is to jobs making stuff that is exported to the EU, or making stuff that requires parts sourced from the EU.

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

Another example of coordinated research is the International Railway Research Board which for the European division is partially funded by the EU. Several projects at the UK IRR centre currently are looking at different aspects of how points (and crossings, to be technical) fail, and how to make them safer, points failure being the cause of such accidents as Hatfield and Grayrigg.

Mind you, one of the better tweets last night was:
This is like a three-hour party political broadcast by #VoteLeave #Eurovision

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Another example of coordinated research is the International Railway Research Board which for the European division is partially funded by the EU.

I say - to my chagrin and shame - that I've never heard of it!

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

Jobs supported by the EU in the UK are in places like Sunderland and Cornwall and if I bother to look, I imagine Wales. In Cornwall the Eden Project was supported by EU funding.

Sunderland received a lot of EU support in the 1990s and continued to receive funding from the European Redevelopment Fund from 2007 to 2013, following all the indigenous industries dying in the 1980s - fishing, steel making, coal mining, ship-building, glass-making.

The EU funded the National Glass Centre in Sunderland when it originally opened in 1998, at least partially. The whole site was festooned with the logos. That information is not easy to find online now as it was redeveloped in 2013.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In the Scottish Parliament, the First Minister is nominated by the Parliament on the basis of an exhaustive ballot. Though in theory anyone could be put forward as a candidate on that, in the current make up anyone other than Nicola Sturgeon would be seen as making a mockery of the system. I'm not even sure if it will be contested.

OK, so I was wrong. Willie Rennie stood, just to make a point that the SNP don't have a majority. With 59 abstentions though Nicola got the job comfortably.

Meanwhile I see in Wales a deal looks like it has been struck allowing a minority Labour government, with PC roles in key new committees that doesn't constitute a coalition, but some cooperation on moving Wales forward together.

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I have to admit I agree with Shamwari's post.

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Besides what would leaving actually get us? We'd lose many of the things that EU membership gets us. Things like ...

Cheap air fares
Not having to apply for visas or hang about at passport control in Europe
Cheaper goods and services, plus the ability to sell into the EU without actually having offices there
The ability to work elsewhere in the EU if we want.
Grants for random stuff like academic research, infrastructure projects or farms
Shitloads of jobs
We would probably still have cheap air fares. As for the ability to work elsewhere in the EU, most of the population don't (do you personally have plans to live and work in a country where the first language isn't English? Never mind "I might do", we all "might do" but in practice most of us don't). As for the grants for the random stuff, I don't know what the proportion of research projects that actually provide useful stuff as opposed to minor or dead ends is.

I also haven't noticed huge quantities of jobs here in Britain thanks to the EU. Are they usually jobs that need specialist knowledge in a field most people aren't qualified for?

I still haven't decided which way to vote. Neither option currently sounds great.

Cheap air fares are benefit of EU membership as I think their legislation limits the amount airlines can charge.

Thinking about jobs directly dependent on the EU, there are industries that depend on single market membership to trade whilst being based here. Loads of financial services jobs would move elsewhere if the UK wasn't part of the EU.

Other jobs in agriculture, academica, construction etc probably depend on EU subs / grants for the programmes to run. I doubt if this government would even consider making up the shortfall so take those away and those jobs will go with them.

As for migrants, there are as many UK people living elsewhere in the EU as there are EU people living here according to this article. The final comment by the Tory is hilariously typical of attitudes to migrants here.

My main problem with the Leave campaign is that they seem to dismiss anything even remotely negative as "project fear" and assume that it'll all be wonderful outside the EU. It won't be. I'd actually be more impressed if they just came right out with it and just said, yes there will be job losses and challenges, but they wil be worth it for what we'll get. But they're not.

Tubbs

[ 20. May 2016, 12:11: Message edited by: Tubbs ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
The final comment by the Tory is hilariously typical of attitudes to migrants here.

It has similarities to the disparity in language - people coming to the UK are immigrants (usually associated with looking for an easier life where they can get loads of good things for little effort), UK citizens going overseas are ex-pats (go-getters, entrepreneurs, taking an opportunity to make something more of their lives through hard work and taking a few risks).

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
The final comment by the Tory is hilariously typical of attitudes to migrants here.
It has similarities to the disparity in language - people coming to the UK are immigrants (usually associated with looking for an easier life where they can get loads of good things for little effort), UK citizens going overseas are ex-pats (go-getters, entrepreneurs, taking an opportunity to make something more of their lives through hard work and taking a few risks).

Oh don't. I had to log off FB when someone started banging on about how migrants had ruined this country so they were leaving for New Zealand. Otherwise I'd have said something unbecoming of a lady. [Big Grin]

Tubbs

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Funniest event in our family occurred about a year ago when brother & wife, well into their seventies, decided to settle in France. They have a very nice place, about 25 miles from Carcassonne but as my SiL is a Sun-reading patriot-going-on-racist we all wonder how she well get by in France?

If Britain leaves they will be sick of the sound of "Mais non" within a fortnight.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It has similarities to the disparity in language - people coming to the UK are immigrants (usually associated with looking for an easier life where they can get loads of good things for little effort), UK citizens going overseas are ex-pats (go-getters, entrepreneurs, taking an opportunity to make something more of their lives through hard work and taking a few risks).

It's a function of frame of reference. With respect to the UK, I am an ex-pat. With respect to the US, I am an immigrant.

Although I think "immigrant" carries long-term implications. If you're working abroad for a couple of years in an arrangement that is intended to be temporary, you are an ex-pat, but I don't think you're an immigrant. This distinction is certainly made in US law, where non-immigrant visas allow one to live/work in the US for a limited number of years, whereas immigrant visas permit an open-ended stay.

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It has similarities to the disparity in language - people coming to the UK are immigrants (usually associated with looking for an easier life where they can get loads of good things for little effort), UK citizens going overseas are ex-pats (go-getters, entrepreneurs, taking an opportunity to make something more of their lives through hard work and taking a few risks).
It's a function of frame of reference. With respect to the UK, I am an ex-pat. With respect to the US, I am an immigrant.

Although I think "immigrant" carries long-term implications. If you're working abroad for a couple of years in an arrangement that is intended to be temporary, you are an ex-pat, but I don't think you're an immigrant. This distinction is certainly made in US law, where non-immigrant visas allow one to live/work in the US for a limited number of years, whereas immigrant visas permit an open-ended stay.

Yes, but many of the people who describe themselves as expats aren't. They're immigrants as they've no intention of returning to their home country and they left in search of a better life, blah, blah. That's one of the big problems with discussions about immigration in the UK. WE think we should be allowed to settle wherever we like in the world, but we don't think THEY should be able to come here.

Tubbs

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Yes, but many of the people who describe themselves as expats aren't.

I am an expatriot Briton. For as long as I remain living in the US, I will remain an expatriot Briton. I am also an immigrant to the US. One word describes my relationship to the UK, and one to the US.

So if I'm discussing my place in the US (as either a stealer of American jobs or as an import of valuable expertise from abroad - whichever spin you prefer), then "immigrant" is the appropriate word.

If I'm discussing my relationship with the UK, then "expat" is more relevant. This could be a discussion about UK elections or taxes, or it could be in reference to a social gathering of Brits in my part of the US.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Yes, but for a discussion within the UK, such as the current one in relation to Brexit, then Brits overseas are ex-pats and non-Brits in the UK are immigrants. And, very often within the popular discussion (and, even the official statistics) the distinction between different forms of immigration are blurred - the headline figures for the number of immigrants includes students, workers on short-term visas, family members joining either of the above, as well as people with indefinite leave to remain. That's before we roll in the brainless, racist thugs of UKIP who see anyone with a non-white skin as an immigrant further muddying the waters.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
My main problem with the Leave campaign is that they seem to dismiss anything even remotely negative as "project fear" and assume that it'll all be wonderful outside the EU. It won't be. I'd actually be more impressed if they just came right out with it and just said, yes there will be job losses and challenges, but they wil be worth it for what we'll get. But they're not.

It's rather a leap in the dark. Like any such thing you don't know what you're going to land on and how much of a splash there'll be, whether you'll break your neck or be able to walk away relatively unscathed. You have your freedom but at what price?

The alternative feels like being stuck in an unhappy relationship where everything seems to be an uphill struggle and expensive with it and your partner doesn't respect you. Your only way out is to jump out of the window and run like hell (if you haven't incurred debilitating injuries in doing so), and the partner's friends have made it pretty clear they won't respect you for doing that either and aren't likely to want to help you.

Which is why I think I may not even vote in this election because I really cannot decide which is the least worst option.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

If we're going with the relationship metaphor, then what the Leave campaign want is to force through a nasty divorce, but then the be able to walk straight back into the house and co-habit with almost everything the same except for the bit of paper saying "we're married".

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If we're going with the relationship metaphor, then what the Leave campaign want is to force through a nasty divorce

I'd say it's quite the opposite. It's saying 'we've tried to make this relationship work but we want different things. Let's divorce but remain friends.'

Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If we're going with the relationship metaphor, then what the Leave campaign want is to force through a nasty divorce
I'd say it's quite the opposite. It's saying 'we've tried to make this relationship work but we want different things. Let's divorce but remain friends.'

That's the point where I think the Leave campaign is completely unrealistic. There is little or no prospect either of remaining friends with our currently fellow members of the EU or of keeping the friendships we have now as part of it. We would be cutting ourselves off: cutting off our noses in order to bleed to death, unnoticed by anyone but ourselves.

I don't think it has been generally noticed just how insignificant the UK is in a globalised world which eats whole cultures and individual nations as a light snack between meals.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I don't think it has been generally noticed just how insignificant the UK is in a globalised world which eats whole cultures and individual nations as a light snack between meals.

Which is probably why so many countries and organizations are queuing up to say "If you leave I'm not going to speak to you again, well not for a very long while, well, perhaps we could work something out but don't leave, pleeeeeease don't leave"?

[ 21. May 2016, 08:39: Message edited by: Ariel ]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If we're going with the relationship metaphor, then what the Leave campaign want is to force through a nasty divorce
I'd say it's quite the opposite. It's saying 'we've tried to make this relationship work but we want different things. Let's divorce but remain friends.'

I have heard that one party in a divorce says this, but I do wonder how two can remain friends if they want different things, especially when one party expects a whole raft of special privileges, which appears to be the object of the Leave campaign.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

I'd certainly put the latest intervention by M Juncker in the category of bullying.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I don't think it has been generally noticed just how insignificant the UK is in a globalised world which eats whole cultures and individual nations as a light snack between meals.

I think this is where the Remain campaign gets unrealistic. We're the fifth largest economy in the world. I'm not sure how that makes us 'insignificant in a globalised world'.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
There is little or no prospect either of remaining friends with our currently fellow members of the EU or of keeping the friendships we have now as part of it.

Why not?

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
... It's saying 'we've tried to make this relationship work ....'

But how many of the prominent leave campaigners can honestly say that they began as pro-EU (or EC), had a good and clear idea of the kind of EU that they wanted, passionately tried to make it work, and have now sorrowfully decided that, alas, it can't be done? David Owen, perhaps. But how many more?

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I don't think it has been generally noticed just how insignificant the UK is in a globalised world which eats whole cultures and individual nations as a light snack between meals.
I think this is where the Remain campaign gets unrealistic. We're the fifth largest economy in the world. I'm not sure how that makes us 'insignificant in a globalised world'.

We're only the fifth largest economy because of our economic links. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
... It's saying 'we've tried to make this relationship work ....'
But how many of the prominent leave campaigners can honestly say that they began as pro-EU (or EC), had a good and clear idea of the kind of EU that they wanted, passionately tried to make it work, and have now sorrowfully decided that, alas, it can't be done? David Owen, perhaps. But how many more?

Is that opposed to the leave campaigners who see this is a shameless opportunity for their own advancement?

It's worth noting that we'd have probably got far out of the EU if we didn't keep sending the likes of Farage as a our reps. UKIPPERS are happy to take the EU money, but don't turn up for meetings and tend not to vote. If you want an example of shameless EU scroungers, there you are!

An actual example. Farage was a member of the EU fisheries committee. Whilst Farage was happy to complain about the EU's former wasteful policy of throwing unwanted fish back in the water, he didn't actually bother turning up to any of the meetings that could do something about it. Out of the 42 he was invited too, he attended one.

The reason the policy was changed was due to lobbying by the likes of Hugh F-W from River Cottage.

Tubbs

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I have no idea what to vote. The thought of voting with the likes of any of the Brexiters is nauseating. But I don't like the idea of being tied into the TTIP scheme with courts run by non-elected corporations trying governments for getting in their way. (Though I'm not sure how they carry out the verdicts.)

Sovereignty with UKIP, or peonage in the EU. What a choice.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

There's more chance of fighting TTIP in Europe than out. The Tories are probably rubbing their hands in glee at TTIP giving more power and profits to their big business chums. Lots of nice company directorships available when they finally tire of living the life of Riley on the public purse and decide to retire from politics.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I have heard that one party in a divorce says this, but I do wonder how two can remain friends if they want different things, especially when one party expects a whole raft of special privileges, which appears to be the object of the Leave campaign.

I would have thought that when they want different things is exactly when two parties in a divorce can remain friends. We like each other, we've tried living together, we've discovered that we can't share a house together because we are too different in our approach to housework, cleanliness or whatever, and are driving each other crazy trying to compromise, when we're just too different. If we aren't forced into conflict by sharing a home, we can go back to liking each other.

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