Let's Get Political!

[Red Frog]

I’m not advocating photo ID, even a bank card or utilities bill would be a start. You have to prove your ID to pick up a parcel at the post office for example do this is no different. In today’s world with technology, the dark internet, foreign powers meddling in politics some form of proving ID is going to have to be implemented at some point.

This is just another case of the UK holding onto something when the rest of the world evolved years ago. Everyone in most of the developed world carries photo identity with them - driving licence or ID card - to present whenever proof of identity is required. It's not Big Brother, in fact the absence of provable ID is a bigger threat these days than the tired old British bogeyman arguments.

Oh, and sort out your 19th century FPTP electoral system while you're at it. "Home of democracy" my arse.

[pauld]

It’ll be implemented eventually as any fraud is too much even if it isn’t widespread.

It'll be implemented if the Tories win the election as they see it as a useful form of vote suppression, been used very successfully by Trump's Republicans in the US

[Reg Smeeton]

This is just another case of the UK holding onto something when the rest of the world evolved years ago. Everyone in most of the developed world carries photo identity with them - driving licence or ID card - to present whenever proof of identity is required. It's not Big Brother, in fact the absence of provable ID is a bigger threat these days than the tired old British bogeyman arguments.

Oh, and sort out your 19th century FPTP electoral system while you're at it. "Home of democracy" my arse.

Labour tried to introduce ID cards around 06, but it never got off the ground.... many of the voices against quoted cost and the technology for such a large scale enterprise probably not being up to it.

[theakston2k]

It'll be implemented if the Tories win the election

Well in that case it will be implemented then 

[horlock07]

All as bad as each other, Labour activists are handing out flyers at the entrances to some polling stations as well.

Not sure if you can equate turning people away because they were not 'eligible' to vote with handing out flyers (which they can do within 50m)?

[horlock07]

Labour tried to introduce ID cards around 06, but it never got off the ground.... many of the voices against quoted cost and the technology for such a large scale enterprise probably not being up to it.

To be honest with governments (of all colours) history with implementing big IT projects I won't be holding my breath!

[theakston2k]

Not sure if you can equate turning people away because they were not 'eligible' to vote with handing out flyers (which they can do within 50m)?

Equally as illegal isn’t it. Not meant to be any campaigning at polling stations is there?

[horlock07]

This is quite an interesting read despite the antagonistic headline; https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/think-corbyn-is-a-danger-to-britain-heres-how-youve-been-brainwashed/12/12/

TL-DR the pertinent bit is;

They’ve already told you what to think on a multitude of issues. You think you made up your own mind, and you think you’re right. But, you didn’t, and you aren’t.

How do I know this? Because blind policy based voting results (whereby voters tick the policies they agree with, without knowing which party they were voting for overall) are always radically different to the actual vote result when it comes to general elections and other major political votes.

Had all votes in previous elections been cast on policy pledges alone, studies suggest the Green Party and Liberal Democrats would have both had a turn at power by now.

[horlock07]

Anyway I am off to get royally drunk now so I am not tempted to sit up and watch the horror unfold.

[Red Frog]

Labour tried to introduce ID cards around 06, but it never got off the ground.... many of the voices against quoted cost and the technology for such a large scale enterprise probably not being up to it.

It's this sort of acting like a backward, tinpot little country that got us into this mess in the first place.

[ron dodgers]

I'm going to Cheltenham for the International meeting then out (not out out) in the Hive tomorrow, I will be very pissed

[RobertT]

This is quite an interesting read despite the antagonistic headline; https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/think-corbyn-is-a-danger-to-britain-heres-how-youve-been-brainwashed/12/12/

TL-DR the pertinent bit is;

They’ve already told you what to think on a multitude of issues. You think you made up your own mind, and you think you’re right. But, you didn’t, and you aren’t.

How do I know this? Because blind policy based voting results (whereby voters tick the policies they agree with, without knowing which party they were voting for overall) are always radically different to the actual vote result when it comes to general elections and other major political votes.

Had all votes in previous elections been cast on policy pledges alone, studies suggest the Green Party and Liberal Democrats would have both had a turn at power by now.

But people don;t just vote for policies, and they shouldn't, otherwise we'd be doing whatever the current flavour of the month is all the time.  Trust in people to carry through their pledges, confidence they can adjust when presented with new facts, to react to changing economic circumstances, and so on.

[Pax Romana]

This is quite an interesting read despite the antagonistic headline; https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/think-corbyn-is-a-danger-to-britain-heres-how-youve-been-brainwashed/12/12/

TL-DR the pertinent bit is;

They’ve already told you what to think on a multitude of issues. You think you made up your own mind, and you think you’re right. But, you didn’t, and you aren’t.

How do I know this? Because blind policy based voting results (whereby voters tick the policies they agree with, without knowing which party they were voting for overall) are always radically different to the actual vote result when it comes to general elections and other major political votes.

Had all votes in previous elections been cast on policy pledges alone, studies suggest the Green Party and Liberal Democrats would have both had a turn at power by now.

It's a line that has been pushed in the past and is open to challenge as to whether it is based on a false premise.  Take a documented fact (how people respond to questions about individual policy issues), extrapolate one possible conclusion from it (that people don't vote in the same way and therefore they must have been brainwashed) and then present that subjective conclusion as if it is the only natural conclusion of the objective evidence.

Ask people if they think it would be good to spend more money on (as separate questions) hospitals, schools, welfare, foreign aid, defence, coastal defences, hill farmers, the railways, the roads, city centres, the countryside etc. and people will tend to say yes to each one, mainly because it's perceived as being a good thing to do and also because people have a built-in tendency to respond yes to questions.  You can go one stage further and ask them whether that makes them more likely to consider voting for Party X who supports all those policies and they will be likely to say yes.  It's a proven psychological technique (people usually want to appear consistent in their answers).

But when they vote they are considering all those public expenditure items as a consolidated set along with the taxation/borrowing implications and a proportion of those people will then come to a different conclusion.

 

[Flashheart]

It looks as though the tories have seen the labour trends dominating twitter and decided they want a trend of their own.

It appears they (or the ruskies) have put a load of bots into action to get #backborris tweeting.

Yes. They have spelt Boris wrong.

[Nemo]

Things I didn't expect to see on Twitter today - Jeremy Corbyn likes a tweet from Lawrence Vigoroux.

Wonder if he'll be paying any tax rise in pennies?