Poor for Labour - the current government is the worst Tory government in my lifetime. Divided and ineffective, unpleasant in patches, ineffective across the board and weak and directionless. May is hapless, the economy is not great (although not dire) - bumping along the bottom at best and there is no strategy or vision, no clear idea of "why" they are in power.
Yet Labour still look less preferable to many swing voters and Corbyn is unassailable. Can only see a Tory win next GE.
The economy is not great???????
We have record employment, record low unemployment, low interest rates, increasing wages. If you want a job you can have one.. The delusion on this site regarding the economy is off the scale.
Right. My only reservation is the lack of balance as evidenced in the deficits (current a/c and budget) and in the housing market.
According to the numbers, the trade deficit was about 25% smaller in 2017 than 2016. IIRC EU Trade deficit down by 10% and Non-EU Trade surplus up by about 10%.
Ah, the 'if you don't agree to a deal which doesn't involve me shooting my feet off, I'll shoot my feet off' gambit.
Have they thought this one through?
It feels like there's a practical problem here though: If the British won't even honour the deal they've already made, what's the point in talking to them about a new one?
It was a stupid concession to make. Britain can only honour commitments to things within its power. It can't force the EU and the Republic not to put up border controls should they wish to; it's entirely their decision. We should simply have made a formal commitment that in no circumstances will we put up border controls, and left it at that.
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
Ealing Council area.
That's worrying because it means someone had voted in your name or has set up a dodgy postal vote.
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
Ealing Council area.
Did they explain how you had voted? In person? Postal ballot?
A tendered ballot is a ballot provided to a voter who is recorded as having already been issued with a vote, but who disputes that this is true. This ballot paper, once completed, is not put into the ballot box, but is given to the Presiding Officer and placed in a separate packet.
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
Ealing Council area.
That's worrying because it means someone had voted in your name or has set up a dodgy postal vote.
Or someone marked up the register incorrectly. Far more likely to be human error (crossing through the wrong name) than anything more sinister, I would have thought.
Ah, the 'if you don't agree to a deal which doesn't involve me shooting my feet off, I'll shoot my feet off' gambit.
Have they thought this one through?
It feels like there's a practical problem here though: If the British won't even honour the deal they've already made, what's the point in talking to them about a new one?
Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed - it's a negotiation.
Stephen Pollard - @stephenpollard: Livingstone about to go on @SkyNews to talk about Labour antisemitism, That's going to go well, isn't it?
He seems to be pretty confident a) that he can say whatever he wants with no consequence, and b) that he is a tremendous asset to the party in what he is saying.
On (a) he's not wrong. After all, here he is - still a member some 2 years after first being suspended.
On (b) is he so far away from some in the Labour leadership? A week or so ago Diane Abbott was being interviewed about the anti-semitism allegations and she said that the reason Labour did not want to adopt in full the definition of anti-semitism used by most governments around the world, the police here and lots of other public bodies was because Labour did not want to be stopped from criticising Israel.
Only two problems with her argument:-
1. This definition does not stop anyone criticising Israel. Indeed it explicitly makes the point that criticism of Israel is not, ipso facto, anti-semitism. 2. What it does say is that, for instance:-
- Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.using Nazi terminology as part of such criticism
So if Ms Abbott is to be believed and/or speaks for Labour, then Labour do want to be free to criticise Israel in an anti-semitic manner and/or say anti-semitic things. Otherwise, why not adopt it? Given that, it's not surprising Livingstone feels free to bang on about Hitler and about how he understands Zionism and Jewish issues better than Jews themselves.
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
Ealing Council area.
That's worrying because it means someone had voted in your name or has set up a dodgy postal vote.
Yep. Or, perhaps the cock-up explanation, that the polling booth staff got it wrong.
Ah, the 'if you don't agree to a deal which doesn't involve me shooting my feet off, I'll shoot my feet off' gambit.
Have they thought this one through?
It feels like there's a practical problem here though: If the British won't even honour the deal they've already made, what's the point in talking to them about a new one?
The current deal is explicitly contingent on an acceptable outcome from trade talks. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
Ah, the 'if you don't agree to a deal which doesn't involve me shooting my feet off, I'll shoot my feet off' gambit.
Have they thought this one through?
It feels like there's a practical problem here though: If the British won't even honour the deal they've already made, what's the point in talking to them about a new one?
It was a stupid concession to make. Britain can only honour commitments to things within its power. It can't force the EU and the Republic not to put up border controls should they wish to; it's entirely their decision. We should simply have made a formal commitment that in no circumstances will we put up border controls, and left it at that.
We've made a formal commitment that we will not take measures that will require border controls (by ensuring no divergence). That is entirely within our power.
Ah, the 'if you don't agree to a deal which doesn't involve me shooting my feet off, I'll shoot my feet off' gambit.
Have they thought this one through?
It feels like there's a practical problem here though: If the British won't even honour the deal they've already made, what's the point in talking to them about a new one?
The current deal is explicitly contingent on an acceptable outcome from trade talks. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
Trade talks will not happen until after the withdrawal agreement is ratified.
It does very much look as though some Labour supporters think their party benefits from fraud. Why else are they opposing the extremely simple and non-obtrusive measures being piloted?
You're better than this. The fear is that rather than preventing almost non-existent personation, this measure will deter or stop properly enfranchised voters.
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
Ealing Council area.
Did they explain how you had voted? In person? Postal ballot?
A tendered ballot is a ballot provided to a voter who is recorded as having already been issued with a vote, but who disputes that this is true. This ballot paper, once completed, is not put into the ballot box, but is given to the Presiding Officer and placed in a separate packet.
Thanks for the explanation.
It was someone who had come in earlier in the day - they (the polling booth staff) had put a tick against my name like all the others. As mentioned, I tend to favour the cock-up explanation but those ticks are very precise and double-checked.
The presiding officer made a call and one of the questions asked was whether anyone had noticed anyone suspicious throughout the day (they had been there all day) and no one had.
First time, the presiding officer said, it had happened to her in 15 years.
Ah, the 'if you don't agree to a deal which doesn't involve me shooting my feet off, I'll shoot my feet off' gambit.
Have they thought this one through?
It feels like there's a practical problem here though: If the British won't even honour the deal they've already made, what's the point in talking to them about a new one?
It was a stupid concession to make. Britain can only honour commitments to things within its power. It can't force the EU and the Republic not to put up border controls should they wish to; it's entirely their decision. We should simply have made a formal commitment that in no circumstances will we put up border controls, and left it at that.
We've made a formal commitment that we will not take measures that will require border controls (by ensuring no divergence). That is entirely within our power.
No it's not. Who judges whether the deal will require border controls on the Republic side? (Hint: It's not us).
At some point he might realise that the leader Labour has elected (twice) is part of the reason the anti-semitic fringe on the Left (as he calls it) feels emboldened to behave in the way it has. They see Corbyn - whether rightly or wrongly - as one of them or someone who won't really do anything effective to kick them out.
Ed Milliband was pretty pro-Palestinian but he did not attract an anti-semitic fringe into the party in the way Corbyn has. Jones and others might like to reflect on why that was.
It does very much look as though some Labour supporters think their party benefits from fraud. Why else are they opposing the extremely simple and non-obtrusive measures being piloted?
You're better than this. The fear is that rather than preventing almost non-existent personation, this measure will deter or stop properly enfranchised voters.
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
No-one knows the scale of personation. But the fact that it is possible means that it is reasonable to take steps to make it impossible.
You don't wait for your house to be burgled before putting a lock on the front door.
It should not be harder to collect a parcel from your local Post Office than it is to vote.
It does very much look as though some Labour supporters think their party benefits from fraud. Why else are they opposing the extremely simple and non-obtrusive measures being piloted?
You're better than this. The fear is that rather than preventing almost non-existent personation, this measure will deter or stop properly enfranchised voters.
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
Since nearly all of those criticising this wilfully ignore how simple it is and claim that you have to have a passport or driving licence or other form of photo ID, I think we can rule out any possibility that they are being honest.
If you were designing a system from scratch, you would put integrity and security at the heart of it. Ensuring individual, verified voter registration, ensuring absentee ballots were carried out by the person requesting them, ensuring that the person presenting themselves to vote in the polling station is who they say they. All of these are basic things that are necessary for a secure voting system.
Who's this "you"? If a person who knew how to do actual security analysis were designing the system from scratch, they'd balance the various conflicting requirements depending on the risk of the various ways they could be exploited. You wouldn't risk a lot of false positives with a heavy identification process for every single voter if there was a low incentive to actually commit fraud, and you could get more impact by prosecuting the few people who try to get away with it and get caught.
This is how actual security is done: There is no such a thing as perfect security, and getting closer to it often costs you money and harms other parts of the system, and if a given measure does too much of that then you shouldn't do it. This will depend on the actual situation, so for instance British airports have concrete bollards to prevent terrorists from driving cars into them, but don't have cattle grids to prevent cattle from wandering over and holding up planes on the runway. In Katmandu, I'm not sure if they have the bollards, but they do have (and need) the cattle grids.
Personally, I think you should stand up to Antisemitism, because it is wrong, its an evil ideology that that can spiral it to horribly places. reading the above tweet, and he seems to be saying that he is standing up to it because, it would be electorally advantages for his party to do so.
I cant see in to his hart, I don't know where his real motivations are, but I do wish he would express himself diffidently.
I wouldn't be remotely surprised if that turned out to have been an accurate snapshot of the state of play at that point in time. The Conservative Calamity Campaign hadn't yet bitten the Tories on the arse, and Corbyn's Campaigning Crescendo was only just starting to unfold.
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
Ealing Council area.
Did they explain how you had voted? In person? Postal ballot?
A tendered ballot is a ballot provided to a voter who is recorded as having already been issued with a vote, but who disputes that this is true. This ballot paper, once completed, is not put into the ballot box, but is given to the Presiding Officer and placed in a separate packet.
Thanks for the explanation.
It was someone who had come in earlier in the day - they (the polling booth staff) had put a tick against my name like all the others. As mentioned, I tend to favour the cock-up explanation but those ticks are very precise and double-checked.
The presiding officer made a call and one of the questions asked was whether anyone had noticed anyone suspicious throughout the day (they had been there all day) and no one had.
First time, the presiding officer said, it had happened to her in 15 years.
I do hope it was a cock up, but as you said, they are usually extremely precise about ticking off the right person.
It does very much look as though some Labour supporters think their party benefits from fraud. Why else are they opposing the extremely simple and non-obtrusive measures being piloted?
You're better than this. The fear is that rather than preventing almost non-existent personation, this measure will deter or stop properly enfranchised voters.
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
Since nearly all of those criticising this wilfully ignore how simple it is and claim that you have to have a passport or driving licence or other form of photo ID, I think we can rule out any possibility that they are being honest.
In Swindon, you only had to turn up with your polling card - no Photo ID at all
Since nearly all of those criticising this wilfully ignore how simple it is and claim that you have to have a passport or driving licence or other form of photo ID, I think we can rule out any possibility that they are being honest.
In some cases the ID requirement was to merely bring the poll card.
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
Ealing Council area.
Did they explain how you had voted? In person? Postal ballot?
A tendered ballot is a ballot provided to a voter who is recorded as having already been issued with a vote, but who disputes that this is true. This ballot paper, once completed, is not put into the ballot box, but is given to the Presiding Officer and placed in a separate packet.
Thanks for the explanation.
It was someone who had come in earlier in the day - they (the polling booth staff) had put a tick against my name like all the others. As mentioned, I tend to favour the cock-up explanation but those ticks are very precise and double-checked.
The presiding officer made a call and one of the questions asked was whether anyone had noticed anyone suspicious throughout the day (they had been there all day) and no one had.
First time, the presiding officer said, it had happened to her in 15 years.
I do hope it was a cock up, but as you said, they are usually extremely precise about ticking off the right person.
Y - likely to be cock-up but vague unnerving feeling it might not have been...
If you were designing a system from scratch, you would put integrity and security at the heart of it. Ensuring individual, verified voter registration, ensuring absentee ballots were carried out by the person requesting them, ensuring that the person presenting themselves to vote in the polling station is who they say they. All of these are basic things that are necessary for a secure voting system.
Who's this "you"? If a person who knew how to do actual security analysis were designing the system from scratch, they'd balance the various conflicting requirements depending on the risk of the various ways they could be exploited. You wouldn't risk a lot of false positives with a heavy identification process for every single voter if there was a low incentive to actually commit fraud, and you could get more impact by prosecuting the few people who try to get away with it and get caught.
This is how actual security is done: There is no such a thing as perfect security, and getting closer to it often costs you money and harms other parts of the system, and if a given measure does too much of that then you shouldn't do it. This will depend on the actual situation, so for instance British airports have concrete bollards to prevent terrorists from driving cars into them, but don't have cattle grids to prevent cattle from wandering over and holding up planes on the runway. In Katmandu, I'm not sure if they have the bollards, but they do have (and need) the cattle grids.
Nothing has been proposed that would count as a 'heavy identification process'
There are no proposals for biometric testing or fingerprinting before you can vote.
Having some additional form of ID is not heavy. I need 3 forms of it to get visitor parking permits round here.
It does very much look as though some Labour supporters think their party benefits from fraud. Why else are they opposing the extremely simple and non-obtrusive measures being piloted?
You're better than this. The fear is that rather than preventing almost non-existent personation, this measure will deter or stop properly enfranchised voters.
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
Since nearly all of those criticising this wilfully ignore how simple it is and claim that you have to have a passport or driving licence or other form of photo ID, I think we can rule out any possibility that they are being honest.
In Swindon, you only had to turn up with your polling card - no Photo ID at all
Yes, it may be that that is a good compromise, with the option of producing any other form of ID (such as a credit card) if you turn up without the polling card. It would be more secure than the current system but still very flexible.
The whole idea of running pilots is to assess the best approach, so it's good that they have trialled slightly different sets of docs.
It does very much look as though some Labour supporters think their party benefits from fraud. Why else are they opposing the extremely simple and non-obtrusive measures being piloted?
You're better than this. The fear is that rather than preventing almost non-existent personation, this measure will deter or stop properly enfranchised voters.
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
Or another move to soften us up for ID cards after the Lib.Dems blocked the coalition from introducing them.
The Wikipedia list of countries with and without them is pretty telling. Do we want to be in the company of Belarus, Bulgaria and Turkey or Canada, Denmark and Norway?
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
Ealing Council area.
Did they explain how you had voted? In person? Postal ballot?
A tendered ballot is a ballot provided to a voter who is recorded as having already been issued with a vote, but who disputes that this is true. This ballot paper, once completed, is not put into the ballot box, but is given to the Presiding Officer and placed in a separate packet.
Thanks for the explanation.
It was someone who had come in earlier in the day - they (the polling booth staff) had put a tick against my name like all the others. As mentioned, I tend to favour the cock-up explanation but those ticks are very precise and double-checked.
The presiding officer made a call and one of the questions asked was whether anyone had noticed anyone suspicious throughout the day (they had been there all day) and no one had.
First time, the presiding officer said, it had happened to her in 15 years.
I do hope it was a cock up, but as you said, they are usually extremely precise about ticking off the right person.
Y - likely to be cock-up but vague unnerving feeling it might not have been...
It's often occurred to me how easy it would be, were I motivated to do so, to go in and vote, read the list of names upside down and pretend to be one of the names not yet crossed off. The system is appallingly open to abuse. That said, postal vote fraud is probably the bigger issue to address.
I don't get people who don't care about this. It seems to be an attitude of 'you only care about cheating because it's not you who benefits from it'.
It does very much look as though some Labour supporters think their party benefits from fraud. Why else are they opposing the extremely simple and non-obtrusive measures being piloted?
You're better than this. The fear is that rather than preventing almost non-existent personation, this measure will deter or stop properly enfranchised voters.
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
"You're better than this" FFS.
"A senior judge made a scathing attack on the postal voting system yesterday, condemning the government for complacency in the face of fraud which would disgrace a "banana republic". Richard Mawrey QC, presiding over a special election court in Birmingham, warned that there were no realistic systems in place to detect or prevent postal voting fraud at the general election. "Until there are, fraud will continue unabated," he said.
He found six Labour councillors in Birmingham guilty of carrying out "massive, systematic and organised" postal voting fraud to win two wards during last June's elections for the city council. Declaring the results void, he barred the men from standing again in a byelection expected on May 12." https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/apr/05/politics.localgovernment
Your party is a bunch of jew-hating vote riggers. I assume "You're better than this" means "but we hope no one will have the poor taste to point this out."
The Wikipedia list of countries with and without them is pretty telling. Do we want to be in the company of Belarus, Bulgaria and Turkey or Canada, Denmark and Norway?
It's not telling at all, you simply selected countries to make a case. Lots of perfectly decent countries have ID cards.
Ah, the 'if you don't agree to a deal which doesn't involve me shooting my feet off, I'll shoot my feet off' gambit.
Have they thought this one through?
It feels like there's a practical problem here though: If the British won't even honour the deal they've already made, what's the point in talking to them about a new one?
It was a stupid concession to make. Britain can only honour commitments to things within its power. It can't force the EU and the Republic not to put up border controls should they wish to; it's entirely their decision. We should simply have made a formal commitment that in no circumstances will we put up border controls, and left it at that.
We've made a formal commitment that we will not take measures that will require border controls (by ensuring no divergence). That is entirely within our power.
No it's not. Who judges whether the deal will require border controls on the Republic side? (Hint: It's not us).
So yesterday I went along to vote to be told that I had already voted. As it happened I had come straight from LHR so showed them my passport and after several phone calls was given a "tender" vote. Whatever that is.
Ealing Council area.
Did they explain how you had voted? In person? Postal ballot?
A tendered ballot is a ballot provided to a voter who is recorded as having already been issued with a vote, but who disputes that this is true. This ballot paper, once completed, is not put into the ballot box, but is given to the Presiding Officer and placed in a separate packet.
Thanks for the explanation.
It was someone who had come in earlier in the day - they (the polling booth staff) had put a tick against my name like all the others. As mentioned, I tend to favour the cock-up explanation but those ticks are very precise and double-checked.
The presiding officer made a call and one of the questions asked was whether anyone had noticed anyone suspicious throughout the day (they had been there all day) and no one had.
First time, the presiding officer said, it had happened to her in 15 years.
I do hope it was a cock up, but as you said, they are usually extremely precise about ticking off the right person.
Y - likely to be cock-up but vague unnerving feeling it might not have been...
It's often occurred to me how easy it would be, were I motivated to do so, to go in and vote, read the list of names upside down and pretend to be one of the names not yet crossed off. The system is appallingly open to abuse. That said, postal vote fraud is probably the bigger issue to address.
I don't get people who don't care about this. It seems to be an attitude of 'you only care about cheating because it's not you who benefits from it'.
Polling booth staff were told (they told me) to ask each person to state their name and address. Not sure the address is on the list to be read upside down (didn't look properly). That is at least a nudge against fraud.
While I was there, incidentally, a Somali woman came into the station and asked for someone to go and help her in the booth to vote (her companion asked for the polling station staff to help) and was told no, it was illegal. So she just stood there and I don't think she got to vote.
Oh yes it was all happening in Ealing yesterday...
The mind boggles as to why councillors felt they'd need to rig the vote in Aston ! Aston ! It is about as secure for Labour as Putin is in Russia at the moment.
It does very much look as though some Labour supporters think their party benefits from fraud. Why else are they opposing the extremely simple and non-obtrusive measures being piloted?
You're better than this. The fear is that rather than preventing almost non-existent personation, this measure will deter or stop properly enfranchised voters.
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
"You're better than this" FFS.
"A senior judge made a scathing attack on the postal voting system yesterday, condemning the government for complacency in the face of fraud which would disgrace a "banana republic". Richard Mawrey QC, presiding over a special election court in Birmingham, warned that there were no realistic systems in place to detect or prevent postal voting fraud at the general election. "Until there are, fraud will continue unabated," he said.
He found six Labour councillors in Birmingham guilty of carrying out "massive, systematic and organised" postal voting fraud to win two wards during last June's elections for the city council. Declaring the results void, he barred the men from standing again in a byelection expected on May 12." https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/apr/05/politics.localgovernment
Your party is a bunch of jew-hating vote riggers. I assume "You're better than this" means "but we hope no one will have the poor taste to point this out."
You do realise that the measures under question have absolutely nothing to do with postal voting, that it's all about voting in person, and quite a few people have been saying that it's the postal voting area people should be looking at instead?
Is this what Kahnemann called "Answering another question" to deflect?
While I was there, incidentally, a Somali woman came into the station and asked for someone to go and help her in the booth to vote (her companion asked for the polling station staff to help) and was told no, it was illegal. So she just stood there and I don't think she got to vote.
Oh yes it was all happening in Ealing yesterday...
The polling station staff can explain the process - but it is quite right that you have to be alone in the booth.
I don't know what can be done if a voter does not have the capability to understand how to vote. I guess they will be told that they should apply for a postal vote where no-one can see how much help you get filling in the voting slip.
2 stories of the night,appalling turnout and the Tory shambles of Voter ID.According to Democracy Volunteers' estimates 1.67% of voters might have lost their right to vote due to ID requirements yesterday.
Only 0.000063% of voters made allegations of fraud in 2017
It does very much look as though some Labour supporters think their party benefits from fraud. Why else are they opposing the extremely simple and non-obtrusive measures being piloted?
You're better than this. The fear is that rather than preventing almost non-existent personation, this measure will deter or stop properly enfranchised voters.
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
Or another move to soften us up for ID cards after the Lib.Dems blocked the coalition from introducing them.
The Wikipedia list of countries with and without them is pretty telling. Do we want to be in the company of Belarus, Bulgaria and Turkey or Canada, Denmark and Norway?
If we want to be in the company of Norway, Denmark and Canada we can join them in requiring photo ID to vote like they do (required in Denmark only if you can't produce a polling card). Happy with that?
Comments
"Annually, the UK’s current account deficit was £82.9 billion (4.1% of GDP) in 2017, a narrowing of £30.7 billion from a deficit of £113.6 billion in 2016; this is the narrowest deficit as a percentage of GDP since 2011 when it was 2.4%."
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/balanceofpayments/quarter4octtodec2017
Honestly, Labour. You couldn't make this stuff as comedy and get a script commissioned. It's too bonkers.
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/992352488664764416
A tendered ballot is a ballot provided to a voter who is recorded as having already been issued with a vote, but who disputes that this is true. This ballot paper, once completed, is not put into the ballot box, but is given to the Presiding Officer and placed in a separate packet.
Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed - it's a negotiation.
On (b) is he so far away from some in the Labour leadership? A week or so ago Diane Abbott was being interviewed about the anti-semitism allegations and she said that the reason Labour did not want to adopt in full the definition of anti-semitism used by most governments around the world, the police here and lots of other public bodies was because Labour did not want to be stopped from criticising Israel.
Only two problems with her argument:-
1. This definition does not stop anyone criticising Israel. Indeed it explicitly makes the point that criticism of Israel is not, ipso facto, anti-semitism.
2. What it does say is that, for instance:-
- Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.using Nazi terminology as part of such criticism
are examples of anti-semitism. (See - https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/working-definition-antisemitism?usergroup=7).
So if Ms Abbott is to be believed and/or speaks for Labour, then Labour do want to be free to criticise Israel in an anti-semitic manner and/or say anti-semitic things. Otherwise, why not adopt it? Given that, it's not surprising Livingstone feels free to bang on about Hitler and about how he understands Zionism and Jewish issues better than Jews themselves.
Or are some forms of bigotry still acceptable within Labour?
Cynics might suggest this is part of a package designed by Cameron and Osborne to reduce Labour's vote.
It was someone who had come in earlier in the day - they (the polling booth staff) had put a tick against my name like all the others. As mentioned, I tend to favour the cock-up explanation but those ticks are very precise and double-checked.
The presiding officer made a call and one of the questions asked was whether anyone had noticed anyone suspicious throughout the day (they had been there all day) and no one had.
First time, the presiding officer said, it had happened to her in 15 years.
https://youtu.be/3HKX2U86Zcw
Ed Milliband was pretty pro-Palestinian but he did not attract an anti-semitic fringe into the party in the way Corbyn has. Jones and others might like to reflect on why that was.
You don't wait for your house to be burgled before putting a lock on the front door.
It should not be harder to collect a parcel from your local Post Office than it is to vote.
This is how actual security is done: There is no such a thing as perfect security, and getting closer to it often costs you money and harms other parts of the system, and if a given measure does too much of that then you shouldn't do it. This will depend on the actual situation, so for instance British airports have concrete bollards to prevent terrorists from driving cars into them, but don't have cattle grids to prevent cattle from wandering over and holding up planes on the runway. In Katmandu, I'm not sure if they have the bollards, but they do have (and need) the cattle grids.
I cant see in to his hart, I don't know where his real motivations are, but I do wish he would express himself diffidently.
There are no proposals for biometric testing or fingerprinting before you can vote.
Having some additional form of ID is not heavy. I need 3 forms of it to get visitor parking permits round here.
It works in Northern Ireland....
The whole idea of running pilots is to assess the best approach, so it's good that they have trialled slightly different sets of docs.
The Wikipedia list of countries with and without them is pretty telling. Do we want to be in the company of Belarus, Bulgaria and Turkey or Canada, Denmark and Norway?
That said, postal vote fraud is probably the bigger issue to address.
I don't get people who don't care about this. It seems to be an attitude of 'you only care about cheating because it's not you who benefits from it'.
"A senior judge made a scathing attack on the postal voting system yesterday, condemning the government for complacency in the face of fraud which would disgrace a "banana republic".
Richard Mawrey QC, presiding over a special election court in Birmingham, warned that there were no realistic systems in place to detect or prevent postal voting fraud at the general election. "Until there are, fraud will continue unabated," he said.
He found six Labour councillors in Birmingham guilty of carrying out "massive, systematic and organised" postal voting fraud to win two wards during last June's elections for the city council. Declaring the results void, he barred the men from standing again in a byelection expected on May 12."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/apr/05/politics.localgovernment
Your party is a bunch of jew-hating vote riggers. I assume "You're better than this" means "but we hope no one will have the poor taste to point this out."
While I was there, incidentally, a Somali woman came into the station and asked for someone to go and help her in the booth to vote (her companion asked for the polling station staff to help) and was told no, it was illegal. So she just stood there and I don't think she got to vote.
Oh yes it was all happening in Ealing yesterday...
Aston ! It is about as secure for Labour as Putin is in Russia at the moment.
Mind you Putin wanted to make sure too.
Is this what Kahnemann called "Answering another question" to deflect?
NEW THREAD
I don't know what can be done if a voter does not have the capability to understand how to vote. I guess they will be told that they should apply for a postal vote where no-one can see how much help you get filling in the voting slip.
The 'facts on the ground' suggest the UK simply cannot leave in any meaningful sense without redefining itself.