On pensions... did a quick sum the other day and I will have worked for less than 9% of my life, (assuming living to 83 and working 35 hours between the ages of 22 and 55). Of course, plenty of unpaid overtime was worked but equally many hours were spent in airport lounges and pointless meetings. So, enough value needs to have been created in those 9% of hours to finance the other 91%. Scary. Also, puts into context the prospect that robots reduce the 9% to 5% or 3% or even 0%. It’s not really that much of a change to the status quo.
55 ? I'll be working till at least 67 (Health permitting) You're either fortunate or unfortunate to stop working at 55 but it won't be the norm..
Three polls this week have had both main parties in the low 40s with the Conservatives fractionally ahead of Labour. Allowing for all the demonstrated weaknesses of polling, it seems a fair working assumption that's where matters currently rest.
On pensions... did a quick sum the other day and I will have worked for less than 9% of my life, (assuming living to 83 and working 35 hours between the ages of 22 and 55). Of course, plenty of unpaid overtime was worked but equally many hours were spent in airport lounges and pointless meetings. So, enough value needs to have been created in those 9% of hours to finance the other 91%. Scary. Also, puts into context the prospect that robots reduce the 9% to 5% or 3% or even 0%. It’s not really that much of a change to the status quo.
55 ? I'll be working till at least 67 (Health permitting) You're either fortunate or unfortunate to stop working at 55 but it won't be the norm..
I can't imagine not working; I'd waste far too much time on PB!
More seriously, if you have a job you love, you never work another day in your life.
On pensions... did a quick sum the other day and I will have worked for less than 9% of my life, (assuming living to 83 and working 35 hours between the ages of 22 and 55). Of course, plenty of unpaid overtime was worked but equally many hours were spent in airport lounges and pointless meetings. So, enough value needs to have been created in those 9% of hours to finance the other 91%. Scary. Also, puts into context the prospect that robots reduce the 9% to 5% or 3% or even 0%. It’s not really that much of a change to the status quo.
55 ? I'll be working till at least 67 (Health permitting) You're either fortunate or unfortunate to stop working at 55 but it won't be the norm..
Selling a property in the Home Counties and moving to North Yorkshire, as well as being in defined benefit pension schemes, have enabled the retirement at 55. Good luck or canny planning? The point stands, employment generally takes up a surprisingly low proportion of our lives and the impact of robots and AI making it an even lower proportion may not be as radical as some predict. Assuming, of course, the wicked capitalists don’t keep all the robot and AI generated value to themselves.
Edit for additional point: having ‘retired’ we have discovered that the voluntary sector has an insatiable appetite for the time of relatively young, retired ex-professionals with finance and project management experience!
Plenty of other systems give what some would define as unfair outcomes - usually the losers, funnily enough. There's a good reason why PR is not used worldwide, and it's not because 'the elite' are opposed to it.
So what would be "unfair" over any of the results we've seen or ever projected. If everyone's playing by the same rules under the same Electoral Commission? Albeit we do see that the rules are not necessarily straightforward to understand - which is why we get people complaining about one side getting majorities on less of the vote than the other, or similar vote shares giving widely dissimilar outputs. After all, 63% for a leading party, on exactly the same vote share, can be (depending on geographical distribution of the vote) anything from just slipping under a majority to winning each and every seat available, can't it? What would be "unfair" about any result between these?
On losers calling things unfair - yeah, anyone can rationalise anything. Including those who win under existing systems - it's startling how often those who win under certain rules can rationalise those rules as being the only right way things can ever be.
Nothing would be unfair (I'm not arguing that they would be - I thought you were!).
*confused*
I wouldn't describe it as "fair" or "unfair" - it's orthogonal to fairness. Fairness is irrelevant to the system. The tiny number of Opposition seats under those vote shares, and the fact that those who got the second-most vote share would finish behind those who got the third-most vote share are what people are calling unfair.
They have a point, but given the arguments over "fairness" and what it means, it is better to call it "unrepresentative". The Parliament (and especially the Government) would not reflect the preferences of the electorate in anything other than the most gross level (Labour got more votes than the other parties; they get the overwhelming representation in Parliament and exclusively in Government).
That's something that could be debated - but given how unavoidably biased everyone is towards their own outlook, "fair" is something that can't ever be mutually agreed on.
The tension between representation at a national level and representation at a local level cannot be solved with either FPTP or PR. Scotland goes some way toward this with their approach, but only the anoraks have a deep understanding of the list system and so I'd say it failed my "straightforward to understand" hurdle (although that is open to argument).
EDIT: agree completely on your comments on 'fairness'. As with beauty, it is largely in the eye of the beholder.
Rochester result confirms that ukip vote does not automatically switch to the Tories.15% swing from Con-Lab could be just a flash in the pan.However,a few more of these sort of swings could also cause much bowel clenching amongst Tory ranks. Terrible national polling for the Lib Dems,losing votes to the Tories and down to 6%,means Vince Cable is the politician most at risk from the local election results.Time for Vince to ride out into the sunrise and give Ms Swinson a go.As long as the Tories keep polling over 40%.the pressure is off May.If it goes regularly into the 30s,panic will surely set in.
Rochester result confirms that ukip vote does not automatically switch to the Tories.15% swing from Con-Lab could be just a flash in the pan.However,a few more of these sort of swings could also cause much bowel clenching amongst Tory ranks. Terrible national polling for the Lib Dems,losing votes to the Tories and down to 6%,means Vince Cable is the politician most at risk from the local election results.Time for Vince to ride out into the sunrise and give Ms Swinson a go.As long as the Tories keep polling over 40%.the pressure is off May.If it goes regularly into the 30s,panic will surely set in.
The Tories should have learnt that lesson at the general election where most of the seats they lost was due to Labour picking up a substantial chunk of the UKIP vote.
Flippy the burger-flipping robot that started work this week in a California restaurant has been forced to take a break because it was too slow.
Big Blue lost in the first few iterations too. And John Henry beat early versions of the steam drill in driving spikes for the railroad, or at least so has legend.
The netflix documentary on AlphaGo reveals it wasn't quite as perfect as made out. It was prone to going insane.
I heard some very pro Theresa May opinions the other day. Rough summary - she's doing a good job considering the mess she was handed. The problem the Tories might have is that if they get rid of her in a way that makes her look hard done by it could backfire on them. I expect that as a good party member she'd want to contrive to avoid that. But there is a risk there nonetheless.
Brillant. Not even a smidgen of a suspicion that there might be a reason for that in the relative quality of the two offerings.
The only really interesting bit of that vice news special was how in team twats version of reality every media outlet was biased against them, including the guardian, and by the end even the corbnyista supporting vice journalist had become part of the shit list for daring to ask one or two tough questions.
I know Corbynistas who are adamant the DUP are effectively terrorists. When I asked for evidence, they pointed to Arlene Foster meeting with and sharing platforms with paramilitary leaders. I pointed out Corbyn met with the IRA's leaders and shared platforms with Jihadis. They said I was repeating Tory smears that had been debunked. There is no reasoning with these people.
How I long for a centre left party that supports democracy and human rights consistently.
There is no point trying to reason with the cultists. They are lost to reason.
Corybn is Trump, Momentum are the Red Hats. I don't know that the Corbynista /r/The_Donald is but I'm sure there is one.
Corbyn is not in Trump's league - he's more like an anti-Semitic Bernie Saunders.
Why do news organisations like the BBC persist in showing vox pop inteviews from North Korea when they must know that people there don't have a choice about what to say?
The good news for the Tories regarding the local election by-election results last night is that Rallings and Thrasher decided a number of years ago that they have no significant bearing on general election results. Evidence of this is the fact that the Tories did so well at the local elections in May last year.
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
I feel like the Corbyn/Labour communism thing has pretty much had all the effect it is going to at this point. Anyone who believes it and/or cares to a certain extent is already on board.
Edit: It is also the huge disadvantage to Labour changing leader, the media can run a whole new set of stories and attacks to discredit the new leader, whereas much of the media attack is already priced in with Corbyn, could any of them maintain the ratings Corbyn currently is with the media attack on top of any votes lost from changing from Corbyn. I personally don't think so.
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
The armed forces are full of pinkos.
/joke, just to be clear
I only remember those figures from election night and a friend of mine trying to rationalise those figures, he was expecting big swings to the Tories in those seats.
His theory was the armed forces (and their families) after years of being underfunded and being sent on numerous escapades were quite wanting to have a pacifist in Number 10.
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
I feel like the Corbyn/Labour communism thing has pretty much had all the effect it is going to at this point. Anyone who believes it and/or cares to a certain extent is already on board.
That is certainly true, although irrespective of any political impact I do hope that we eventually end up at a point where people do not romanticise truly terrible communist regimes. Sure as a country we've looked the other way with plenty of terrible regimes over the years, and still do, but for some reason the communist ones seem to attract more romantic support.
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
The armed forces are full of pinkos.
/joke, just to be clear
I only remember those figures from election night and a friend of mine trying to rationalise those figures, he was expecting big swings to the Tories in those seats.
His theory was the armed forces (and their families) after years of being underfunded and being sent on numerous escapades were quite wanting to have a pacifist in Number 10.
Isn't electoral registration generally much lower than average on military bases in any case?
My Dad was in the armed forces and was intending to vote Labour when it was around election time. He wasn't wild about Corbyn but he wasn't a Corbyn hater either.
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
I feel like the Corbyn/Labour communism thing has pretty much had all the effect it is going to at this point. Anyone who believes it and/or cares to a certain extent is already on board.
That is certainly true, although irrespective of any political impact I do hope that we eventually end up at a point where people do not romanticise truly terrible communist regimes. Sure as a country we've looked the other way with plenty of terrible regimes over the years, and still do, but for some reason the communist ones seem to attract more romantic support.
If it is any consolation, the message behind it is not* Stalin was good but a lot more complex than that.
*in mainstream usage anyway, I'm sure there are some.
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
The armed forces are full of pinkos.
/joke, just to be clear
I only remember those figures from election night and a friend of mine trying to rationalise those figures, he was expecting big swings to the Tories in those seats.
His theory was the armed forces (and their families) after years of being underfunded and being sent on numerous escapades were quite wanting to have a pacifist in Number 10.
I guess they wouldn't have been happy if that pacifist had put them out of a job!
The only place where Labour didn't do as well because of this sort of thing was Hendon and Finchley and Golders Green.
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
The armed forces are full of pinkos.
/joke, just to be clear
I only remember those figures from election night and a friend of mine trying to rationalise those figures, he was expecting big swings to the Tories in those seats.
His theory was the armed forces (and their families) after years of being underfunded and being sent on numerous escapades were quite wanting to have a pacifist in Number 10.
I guess they wouldn't have been happy if that pacifist had put them out of a job!
The only place where Labour didn't do as well because of this sort of thing was Hendon and Finchley and Golders Green.
Well he was going to keep the subs, but not load them up with (nuclear) weapons.
My Dad was in the armed forces and was intending to vote Labour when it was around election time. He wasn't wild about Corbyn but he wasn't a Corbyn hater either.
My eighty something dad is a Leaver and Kipper, with RAF service. He has always been pro-Soviet because of their massive battles on the Eastern Front in his childhood. On a recent Volga cruise he was particularly overwhelmed by the memorials in Stalingrad.
People are complex and at times contradictory. He won't vote Labour, but won't vote Tory either as he dislikes his MP, "shagger" Nokes.
Extraordinary. We can now judge hedge fund managers from a mere photograph and a ruler for the fWHR. Using facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) for testosterone, we show that high testosterone hedge fund managers significantly underperform low-testosterone hedge fund managers after adjusting for risk ...
The Tory's defy gravity in national polling by keeping leaver and anyone-but-Corbyn voters. Local voters can think differently. Shows that if Labour had a moderate leader, they'd be 10 points ahead, easily.
[there may be some confirmation bias in the above]
Evidence? Recent German, Italian, Dutch and US elections suggest otherwise.
Even in France Macron did not run on the Socialist Party ticket
The 'confirmation bias' was meant to indicate it was an opinion, not a fact.
But I suppose you could view the fact that a Labour Party led by an antisemitic, anti-western trot with links to terrorist organisations and vicious authoritarian regimes, who has threatened the free press and our financial system, who has shown a complete absence of understanding how the economy works, has surrounded himself with proven liars and incompetents, and has directly accused our forces of murdering children in Yemen, is still level pegging in the polls as *evidence*, if you like...
Or you could look at the latest polling today putting Labour on 42%, it's highest rating since 1997 and a total any centre left party in Europe losing votes to anti immigration and anti globalisation parties at present would give their eye teeth for.
Labour's poll share was far higher than 42% through most of the 1997-2001 parliament.
Labour's peak poll result was with Gallup, in November 1997:
Lab 63 Con 23 LD 11.
According to Electoral Calculus, that would have produced 603 Labour MPs, 18 Lib Dems, 12 Conservatives.
Paddy A as LotO. Could have been fun!
How many complaints would the LibDems have made about the unfairness of FPTP?
603 Labour MPs, 18 Lib Dems, 12 Conservatives on Lab 63 Con 23 LD 11 - doesn't look fair.
That was my point. But I suspect the LibDems wouldn’t have complained about it
The good news for the Tories regarding the local election by-election results last night is that Rallings and Thrasher decided a number of years ago that they have no significant bearing on general election results. Evidence of this is the fact that the Tories did so well at the local elections in May last year.
The local elections in 2017 were overtaken by the impact of the general election, Mr JS. They took place, moreover, at the height of approval for Mrs May. Without the general election having been called, the Lib Dems would have done very much better, and the Tories very much worse in the locals.
You were predicting Lab gain Salisbury before this?
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
For Salisbuery, read anywhere with a military base.....
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
Corbyn's backstory didn't damage Labour in places like Devonport (Lab gain) and Colchester up 19% pushing the Lib Dems back into third, Labour also up 11% in Hereford & South Herefordshire
The armed forces are full of pinkos.
/joke, just to be clear
I only remember those figures from election night and a friend of mine trying to rationalise those figures, he was expecting big swings to the Tories in those seats.
His theory was the armed forces (and their families) after years of being underfunded and being sent on numerous escapades were quite wanting to have a pacifist in Number 10.
I guess they wouldn't have been happy if that pacifist had put them out of a job!
The only place where Labour didn't do as well because of this sort of thing was Hendon and Finchley and Golders Green.
Well he was going to keep the subs, but not load them up with (nuclear) weapons.
Might explain Lab gain Devenport.
Arguably most of the working-class and heavily military influenced Plymouth wards are in Moor View, which the Tories held. The dockyard itself is in Sutton & Devonport but that seat in general is by far the more middle class and student influenced of the two.
Of course you missed out by far the best example - Portsmouth South
My Dad was in the armed forces and was intending to vote Labour when it was around election time. He wasn't wild about Corbyn but he wasn't a Corbyn hater either.
My eighty something dad is a Leaver and Kipper, with RAF service. He has always been pro-Soviet because of their massive battles on the Eastern Front in his childhood. On a recent Volga cruise he was particularly overwhelmed by the memorials in Stalingrad.
People are complex and at times contradictory. He won't vote Labour, but won't vote Tory either as he dislikes his MP, "shagger" Nokes.
That penultimate sentence ought to be on the banner.
The good news for the Tories regarding the local election by-election results last night is that Rallings and Thrasher decided a number of years ago that they have no significant bearing on general election results. Evidence of this is the fact that the Tories did so well at the local elections in May last year.
Without the general election having been called, the Lib Dems would have done very much better, and the Tories very much worse in the locals.
How can you know that as a certainty? As the GE itself showed, good campaigning very much reduced the Tory lead, maybe the LDs simply didn't campaign well enough.
Comments
I'll be working till at least 67 (Health permitting)
You're either fortunate or unfortunate to stop working at 55 but it won't be the norm..
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000162-0a3c-d21f-abe7-defd9f5e0001
More seriously, if you have a job you love, you never work another day in your life.
Edit for additional point: having ‘retired’ we have discovered that the voluntary sector has an insatiable appetite for the time of relatively young, retired ex-professionals with finance and project management experience!
EDIT: agree completely on your comments on 'fairness'. As with beauty, it is largely in the eye of the beholder.
https://twitter.com/MomentumBolton/status/971629907313864704
Terrible national polling for the Lib Dems,losing votes to the Tories and down to 6%,means Vince Cable is the politician most at risk from the local election results.Time for Vince to ride out into the sunrise and give Ms Swinson a go.As long as the Tories keep polling over 40%.the pressure is off May.If it goes regularly into the 30s,panic will surely set in.
The first article scared the crap out of me
It turned out to be as accurate as much of his following articles
I don't bother reading him anymore
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-43350527
Could be a double bluff though, cunning buggers these reds...
What with it being a marginal with Labour only seventeen thousand votes behind the blue meanies.
That image is going to appear on leaflets!
/joke, just to be clear
Edit: It is also the huge disadvantage to Labour changing leader, the media can run a whole new set of stories and attacks to discredit the new leader, whereas much of the media attack is already priced in with Corbyn, could any of them maintain the ratings Corbyn currently is with the media attack on top of any votes lost from changing from Corbyn. I personally don't think so.
His theory was the armed forces (and their families) after years of being underfunded and being sent on numerous escapades were quite wanting to have a pacifist in Number 10.
Richmond, home of Catterick Garrison, saw Labour's share of the vote increase by 10% as Labour moved from third to second.
*in mainstream usage anyway, I'm sure there are some.
The only place where Labour didn't do as well because of this sort of thing was Hendon and Finchley and Golders Green.
Might explain Lab gain Devenport.
People are complex and at times contradictory. He won't vote Labour, but won't vote Tory either as he dislikes his MP, "shagger" Nokes.
https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/972194007131582467
Using facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) for testosterone, we show that high testosterone hedge fund managers significantly underperform low-testosterone hedge fund managers after adjusting for risk ...
More Staly-Vostok than Staly-Vegas.
Hyde, town in which the Rata was raised, is way classier anyway.
Idiots.
Two different Tameside mentions in one thread!
Of course you missed out by far the best example - Portsmouth South
“As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s his problem, not mine.”
Surely the best presidential joke since Reagan's "It's true that hard work never killed anybody, but I figure why take the chance?"
Note - I voted LD in the locals, btw.