[mdavidford]

Given that their house seems

Given that their house seems to think it’s a merchant ship, are we sure they weren’t rammed by pirates?

[mdavidford]

lonpfrb wrote:

lonpfrb wrote:

Whilst one may disagree with NF, there’s no suggestion that freedom of speech is at risk in the UK

Well, unless it’s your freedom to discuss gender issues or history through a racial lens in schools…

[mdavidford]

exilegareth wrote:

There’s no such thing as raw votes

I’m pretty sure I remember making a mark on a piece of paper and dropping it in a box. My understanding is those bits of paper then get counted to decide who won.

exhilarated wrote:

all the numbers are a function of party activity. Labour chose to prioritize getting their vote out in target seats, not all seats. […] activity by parties changes all the numbers.

Enthusiasm is a function of that activity; votes are an indication of that enthusiasm.

[mdavidford]

David9694 wrote:

fake Reform candidates

Were they actually bots?

[mdavidford]

David9694 wrote:

There are a couple of other variants (Alternative vote, single Transferable Vote) that try to offer a bit of both, but apart from having been rejected in the referendum of 2011, it’s all a bit “add 5 and then divide by the number you originally thought of and then come back next week” complicated.

It’s not really any more complicated than voting for Strictly, and the Great British Public™ seems to manage that OK.

[mdavidford]

hawkinspeter wrote:

Ultimately, FPTP favours the larger parties  but also has the effect of making parliament more effective by providing larger/more majorities.

Depends what you mean by ‘effective’. It allows governments to do more stuff, but that’s not necessarily a good thing, especially when it’s driven by dogma. Arguably, Parliament is often more effective when it’s doing less.

[mdavidford]

That works in theory, but not

That works in theory, but not always in practice. Often, having a fragile majority can encourage even critical backbenchers to be more compliant, for fear of the potential danger of causing trouble, whereas those with large majorities can end up getting distracted by trying to manage their diverse and fractious coalitions.

[mdavidford]

All true, but an argument

All true, but an argument about the inadequacy of FPTP is a sidetrack from the original question of a lack of enthusiasm for Labour. They’re both valid cases, but mixing the two together muddies the waters.

Lowest share of vote for governing party delivering honking majority demonstrates brokenness of FPTP.

Lowest share of electorate demonstrates lack of enthusiasm for them (or anyone else).

[mdavidford]

Well exactly. But it’s much

Well exactly. But it’s much worse than the 33.7% makes it look. If you’re talking about enthusiasm, you need to look not at share of the vote, but at either raw vote numbers or share of the electorate. And since turnout was also down to 60%, that means only about 20% of people were motivated to vote for them, which compares even less favourably with past results. And obviously even less for each of their opponents. Basically, there’s not much enthusiasm for politicians generally (Reform included).

[mdavidford]

David9694 wrote:

Nige is usually pretty quick at crying foul if/when he’s on the receiving end of anything like this.

Or even when he’s not.

[mdavidford]

If you want to make an

If you want to make an argument about enthusiasm, focusing on vote share is probably missing the wood for the trees. Look at raw votes – the number of people voting for Labour was down on what it was at the last election, so at the least we can say that enthusiasm for them is less now than it was then.

(Same goes for the Lib Dems, btw)

Of course, by that reckoning there was less than half as much enthusiasm for Reform as there was for Labour, though.

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chrisonabike wrote:

this is the view from the states where their “neutral” origin will be displaced from ours never mind other factors

And apparently they’ve never heard of Sinn Féin, which seems… surprising.

[mdavidford]

Blimey – I didn’t expect that

Blimey – I didn’t expect that anyone would actually bother. And a somewhat disturbing answer. Especially given that, unless it’s changed significantly since I did it, you can usually, unless you’re completely lacking in common sense, discard at least one of the answers for being completely implausible*, which would mean you could be guessing even more of the time.

[* “Travelling at speed on a dual carriageway, you see brake lights coming on on the cars in front of you – what should you do?

a) Jam your foot down hard on the accelerator…]

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Maths question for anyone who

Maths question for anyone who can be bothered:

Given that the theory test is multiple choice, with four choices per question, and a pass mark of 86%

• What are the odds of you passing in 60 attempts if you just pick answers at random?
• What kind of error rate would give you a better than evens chance of passing in 60 attempts?

Maybe if you fail, the pass mark for each subsequent attempt should be increased a little.

[mdavidford]

brooksby wrote:

It seems an appropriate place to log this – The Sun has thrown its weight behind Labour  https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/28935096/its-time-for-a-change/

Clearly Labour really isn’t particularly left wing any more… 

Not so much thrown their weight behind them as finally conceded that there’s no time left for anything to derail them – they just want to be seen backing the winner. What the poitics are is almost irrelevant.

[Author]

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