Scooter wrote:Would people who don't like the idea of their vote being "wasted" or acting as a spoiler under the current system, and who don't like the instability of prop rep, be inclined to support something similar to the Australian system (a form of instant runoff)? More likely to form stable majorties, and yet the ranking allows your vote to count towards the candidates you are most inclined to support, rather than splitting the votes in a constituency in such a way as to allow your least favoured candidate to sneak up the middle.
In the UK now? Truth is I really don't know.
maybe Daisy or RB or the stoat would be able to answer that one.
I would think it would take some selling to the public.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
In the UK there is a "None of the Above Party"! Their stated promise is that (or was that) the candidate, if voted in, would immediately resign to force a re-election. Thus the UK voters could show their dissatisfaction with the current lot.
However, from their web site:
The Government has in January 2005, together with the Electoral Commission, introduced The Registration of Political Parties (Prohibited Words and Expressions) (Amendment) Order 2005 , which identifies words which are not permitted to be used on ballot forms. This paper, due to take effect on 19th February 2005 lists the expression "None of the above" as the (one and only) banned party name!
On the eve of elections, opinion polling makes it look like Labour is picking up some support at the expense of both Tories and LibDems. What does it actually look like in the UK with voting just hours away?
Scooter wrote:Would people who don't like the idea of their vote being "wasted" or acting as a spoiler under the current system, and who don't like the instability of prop rep, be inclined to support something similar to the Australian system (a form of instant runoff)? More likely to form stable majorties, and yet the ranking allows your vote to count towards the candidates you are most inclined to support, rather than splitting the votes in a constituency in such a way as to allow your least favoured candidate to sneak up the middle.
Is that a 1-2-3 preference voting system, where the last-place finisher is eliminated and all his/her voters' second-choice candidates get those votes?
Looks like we'll be shafted whoever wins. Not that I am disillusioned
The BBC take an average of all polls conducted and it looks like Labour have taken some Lib Dem votes but no Tory votes. You can see this here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ ... 609989.stm
Conservatives: 35%, Labour: 29%, Lib Dem: 26%. On that basis, Labour would win - and I imagine there would be an outcry.
Let the fun commence
If a man speaks in the forest and there are no women around to hear is he still wrong?
This has just given me a serious fit of the giggles ....
The British National party's (BNP) beleaguered election campaign hit a new disaster today when its head of online operations quit the party and took the website with him.
Simon Bennett, directed traffic to his own website, where he posted an outspoken attack on the party and its leadership, the Times reported today.
Mr Bennett suggested the party was disorganised, amateurish and constantly wasting membership fees.
"This will no doubt [sic] come as a shock to many of those that read this, particularly those who really don't want to hear it," he wrote.
"However, I have a duty to the members and my conscience, but most of all to my wife and children, to tell the truth behind the spin."
The website was briefly down yesterday afternoon before it was reactivated, but the comments quickly spread across the web.
Party leader Nick Griffin and election fundraiser James Dowson w e re branded "pathetic, desperate and incompetent" by Mr Bennett.
It is just the latest incident of infighting threatening to the derail the far-right party's general election campaign.
Mr Griffin himself recently informed police that someone in the organisation was trying to kill him.
The party was also damaged when it used an image of Marmite on an online broadcast, leading the manufacturers to serve an injunction against it.
Mr Bennett said he warned the leadership not to proceed with the stunt, but was ignored. He claims to have been physically threatened over the website and insisted he would call the police if the threats continued.
Diversity champions Emma projected a Nazi symbol onto the side of the Commons last weekend to warn voters of the danger of backing the far-right party in tomorrow's election.
If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you may have misjudged the situation.
David Cameron has the keys of 10 Downing Street almost within his grasp as the final poll of the campaign for The Times indicates that the Conservatives will make sweeping gains from Labour in tomorrow’s general election.
Despite registering an increasing lead in the polls, the Tories cannot yet be sure of winning an overall Commons majority. This will depend on whether they can do better than the national trend in key Labour marginals to offset a strong predicted Liberal Democrat performance.
A Populus poll of 2,505 voters yesterday afternoon and up to this lunchtime puts the Conservatives on 37 per cent, up one point on a week ago. Labour is up one point at 28 per cent and the Liberal Democrats down one point at 27 per cent.
This would represent a switch of votes from Labour to the Tories of just over 6 per cent since the 2005 general election, the biggest swing to the Conservatives since 1945 and second only to the swing to Labour in 1997. On a uniform switch of votes since the 2005 election, this would give the Conservatives an additional 91 MPs. They need a further 25 seats to be sure of an overall Commons majority.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT Sullen British Staggering To Voting Pubs Right Now
Why do we care at all about the UK election taking place today? Aren’t the British to blame for our whole Tea Party problem? And didn’t those curry-spewing lobsterbacks burn down the White House that one time? Well, today we will let bygones be bygones, because the UK elections are really the only foreign politics we can cover without running everything through Google Translate. Plus, as a result of the US/UK “special relationship,” more than 90% of journalists in Washington and New York are British people. They “set the agenda,” which is the “posh spice” way of saying “Win the Morning.”
Due to the quaint customs of Merry Olde England, Stabby Olde Scotland, Weird Olde Wales and Troubled Olde Northern Ireland, vote counts will not be revealed until Friday — a full night after polling ends! The reason is as obvious as it is odious: British men are required to do their voting in “public houses,” with their party choice represented by the highest stack of emptied pint glasses. It takes a terribly long time to translate the piles of broken glass, Tesco ready-meal cartons and very occasional intact pint vessel into something resembling a local-vote tally. (British women, of course, “vote” by counting the number of cigarettes smoked whilst queuing up for their Election Day abortions.)
But who will win? The latest polls suggest David Cameron (pictured) will lead his conservative Tory party to a weak victory, with gloomy basset hound Gordon Brown’s Labour holding onto second place and the mysterious “Lib Dems” making a strong-yet-still-third-place showing thanks to an inspiring performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” by fresh-faced newcomer Nick Clegg during Britain’s first-ever television broadcast.
Until Clegg captivated the UK with whatever he did — basically, he was “not as creepy as Cameron” and “looked better than that sack of glum porridge standing in for Gordon Brown” — there was much talk about how substantial this election would be, what with the terrible debt and the collapsed banks. But, ultimately, it all came down to meaningless Debate Performance, and it looks like the Liberal Democrats will only prevent Labour from winning either a parliamentary majority or the leadership.
That’s kind of sad. Even the Economist admits Labour has had a very good run and dramatically changed the UK in important, positive ways. But nobody remembers, because people are dumb. And drunk, so very drunk.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
There is utter chaos here - and there's some concern that the results even though nowhere near final yet will be open to legal challenges (plural) as many polling stations closed bang on 10pm and refused to let hundreds of voters cast their votes even though they'd been queuing for up to an hour before the closing time, whilst other polling stations gave out ballots after 10pm to people who'd been queuing before 10pm, another closed the doors but allowed those inside to vote after closing. Apparently there's sit in's and police being called to poll stations to try and handle angry voters who haven't been able to vote and in several constituencies the majorities are so small that those that weren't allowed to vote might well have changed the result.
The exit polls suggest that we're looking at a hung parliament with the Tories probably able to form a minority government on the other hand if they are a minority and Labour does a deal with the LibDems they could also still form a government.
I'm off to bed now, it'll be interesting finding out in the morning whats happened.
If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you may have misjudged the situation.
Looks like a fucking farce there at the moment, a complete cock up!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Lovely to see Lembic "lopsided" Opic go down, the Liberal media whore that he is...
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Ha! Just noticed, the volume control on the live view on the BBC website goes....
..all the way up to 11!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
It's still all up in the air - Labour could still hold on by joining with the LibDems and others under the constitution Gordon Brown has the first attempt at forming a government only if he can't do it will the Tories get to have a go. I personally would prefer a Lab/Lib pact and a very early new election (within 6 months) rather than see the Tories in power.
If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you may have misjudged the situation.
Reality Bytes wrote:It's still all up in the air - Labour could still hold on by joining with the LibDems and others under the constitution Gordon Brown has the first attempt at forming a government only if he can't do it will the Tories get to have a go. I personally would prefer a Lab/Lib pact and a very early new election (within 6 months) rather than see the Tories in power.
Possible outcomes
Tories forms minority government
Tory/Lib Coalition
Lab/Lib Coalition
Lets face it we're going to the polls again in November of February.
