On 09/06/15 23:06, Nightjar "cpb"@ wrote:
On 09/06/2015 22:15, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/06/15 16:18, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Nightjar cpb@ insert my surname here.me.uk wrote:
On 09/06/2015 14:00, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Tim Watts wrote:
I see your point, but I disagree that a party that got 12% vote
share is
a "minority".

Is there any official definition of minority when it comes to
political
parties?...

Generally, any party that has so little electoral support that it
has no
realistic prospect of forming or being part of a government.

Ah. Thanks. UKIP supporters will be in denial about this.

ITYM greens or liberal democrats or SNP actually. All polled far less
than UKIP.

Not much use if that doesn't translate to seats in Parliament.

In fact apart from Labour and Tory, UKIP is the ONLY other party likely
to form a national government in the next decade

Going by the demographics of UKIP supporters, a lot of them will have
popped their clogs before then.


Another assertion simply not borne out by the facts.



--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 10/06/15 07:38, Adrian wrote:
Either of the major parties were happy to go into coalition with
the LDs, neither would partner with UKIP.

complete nonsense. The other main parties will 'coalesce' with whoever is
necessary to gain power and you know it. The demographics made the LDs a
more likely choice up to 2015, that's all. Now there is no talk of any
coalition with anyone.

UKIP is the third most popular party in the UK by votes cast.

But what matters with coalitions is the number of MPs elected,
not the percentage of votes cast.

You can't escape that fact,

You can't escape that fact on the number of MPs elected either.

and if that position improves I can assure you there
will be a scramble of people wanting a coalition with them.

Not unless the number of MPs elected changes dramatically.

LDs and Labour are on the decline, the Tories are barely holding on to
vote share

What matters is MPs elected, not vote share.

- the parties on the move are the SNP and UKIP.

UKIP in fact ended up with only half the number of MPs
elected and couldnt even manage to get Farage elected.

Get over it.

You're the one that needs to do that.

On 10/06/15 08:09, John Chance wrote:


"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 10/06/15 07:38, Adrian wrote:
Either of the major parties were happy to go into coalition with
the LDs, neither would partner with UKIP.

complete nonsense. The other main parties will 'coalesce' with whoever
is necessary to gain power and you know it. The demographics made the
LDs a more likely choice up to 2015, that's all. Now there is no talk
of any coalition with anyone.

UKIP is the third most popular party in the UK by votes cast.

But what matters with coalitions is the number of MPs elected,
not the percentage of votes cast.

You can't escape that fact,

You can't escape that fact on the number of MPs elected either.

and if that position improves I can assure you there
will be a scramble of people wanting a coalition with them.

Not unless the number of MPs elected changes dramatically.

LDs and Labour are on the decline, the Tories are barely holding on to
vote share

What matters is MPs elected, not vote share.

- the parties on the move are the SNP and UKIP.

UKIP in fact ended up with only half the number of MPs
elected and couldnt even manage to get Farage elected.

Get over it.

You're the one that needs to do that.

Not at all. UKIP are a little worse in terms of vote share than I hoped
- all credit to a very astute and very dirty campaign by the Tory
election machine - but by and large it was serious gains across the board.

The real news apart from that is the almost total collapse of Labour in
Scotland, and the collapse of the LDS across the shires.

And the general disaffection with Labour in England, away from the
actual heartlands.

In short the British people didn't feel UKIP were credible enough for
government - fair enough, that's a hill to climb, - they distrusted
Miliband mightily and savaged clegg and the LDs for breaking their
promises and were left with only one viable alternative.

No one really won. But the conservatives inherited a government as the
least unpopular.

The really big news was that no one trusts or wants Labour any more. Its
broke, its shrinking back to a core of disaffected leftists and that's
fine by me.



--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 10/06/2015 07:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/06/15 23:06, Nightjar "cpb"@ wrote:
On 09/06/2015 22:15, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/06/15 16:18, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Nightjar cpb@ insert my surname here.me.uk wrote:
On 09/06/2015 14:00, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Tim Watts wrote:
I see your point, but I disagree that a party that got 12% vote
share is
a "minority".

Is there any official definition of minority when it comes to
political
parties?...

Generally, any party that has so little electoral support that it
has no
realistic prospect of forming or being part of a government.

Ah. Thanks. UKIP supporters will be in denial about this.

ITYM greens or liberal democrats or SNP actually. All polled far less
than UKIP.

Not much use if that doesn't translate to seats in Parliament.

In fact apart from Labour and Tory, UKIP is the ONLY other party likely
to form a national government in the next decade

Going by the demographics of UKIP supporters, a lot of them will have
popped their clogs before then.


Another assertion simply not borne out by the facts.

According to a 2013 YouGov survey, 71% of UKIP supporters are over 50,
compared to the national figure of 46%.

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/03/05...s-ukip-voters/

Another survey, from April this year, showed that their greatest support
came from the over 65s.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/laur...b_6631026.html

Whether you like it or not, the person most likely to support UKIP is a
retired male manual worker, over 65, living in the Eastern counties
(with Yorkshire and Humberside or the Midlands other likely areas), who
never got a higher qualification than GCSE.

The average life expectancy at age 65 for those areas is 18-19 years,
but you can knock two years off that for manual workers, giving a life
expectancy of 16-17 years. As there will be a spread of ages in that
group, I don't think it unreasonable to suggest that a lot of them will
be dead within the next ten years.

--
Colin Bignell

On 09/06/15 22:42, bert wrote:

I didn't say it was less bad, I said it was not perfect. Now perhaps you
can suggest a system that is.

Firstly I did not say I had the answer. I said the current system is
broken and there's no damn excuse for putting up with that just because
there is not an *obvious* alternative. It means some serious works need
to be done.

I still prefer the STV (single transferrable vote). It is not PR but it
does encourage people to vote for who they really want rather than
thinking it is a wasted vote. It was the system favoured by the Student
Union and allied student bodies at York Uni in the 80's.

I had never heard of it prior, but it immediately made perfect sense.

That addresses one problem. But probably not the PR aspect.

I think you probably still have to elect a single constituency bod who
is answerable to the locals as others say.

The only immediate offering I have is to apply a weighting factor to
parliamentary voting. This would lead to the slightly off situation
where my UKIP bloke as a voting multiplier of over 65 (12% of 650
whatever that is).

And what to do if UKIP had no seats but 10% of the vote - a "ghost" MP?

Perhaps another solution is to look at reforming the 2nd house. One
house as is, the other house fully PR or people appointed by the parties.

You'll rip those to shreds I expect, but this problem demands people
start throwing ideas around until a better solution is found.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 08:51:55 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

I still prefer the STV (single transferrable vote). It is not PR but it
does encourage people to vote for who they really want rather than
thinking it is a wasted vote. It was the system favoured by the Student
Union and allied student bodies at York Uni in the 80's.

OK, so under STV, UKIP would have had the same number of first choice
votes. I very much doubt they'd have had any significant chunk of second
choice votes at all - they're too marmite, love/hate. If people were even
remotely thinking of supporting them, they'd have gone first choice.

So they wouldn't have won more seats.

If anything, I suspect they'd have even lost Clacton, as their love/hate
nature would have meant that non-Tory first-choice supporters would have
passed their second-choice vote to the Tory candidate to block Carswell.

The only immediate offering I have is to apply a weighting factor to
parliamentary voting. This would lead to the slightly off situation
where my UKIP bloke as a voting multiplier of over 65 (12% of 650
whatever that is).

So Carswell walks into a division, and the teller ticks 65 votes...? But
for each Tory who walks into a division, the teller ticks off 0.73 of a
vote (just over 50% of seats, just under 37% of votes)? One Carswell is
"worth" almost 89 Tory MPs?

It actively multiplies the disparity between the "power" of voters in
that one constituency and in others.

Think about that for a minute. Parliamentary majority? What's that?
You're immediately back to a coalition - with one MP having inordinate
power. One MP that - immediately after the election - had a major-league
falling out with the party leader, leading to rumours he might be about
to defect back.

Perhaps another solution is to look at reforming the 2nd house. One
house as is, the other house fully PR or people appointed by the
parties.

Isn't the latter pretty much what it is now? There are 788 people sitting
in the Lords. Only 88 (11%) of them are hereditary.

If anything, though, going for explicit political appointment would make
the second chamber MORE political, not less - there are currently 234 (30%
) who are not politically aligned. The whole point of the second chamber
is to provide apolitical scrutiny on the political lower chamber.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 10/06/15 08:09, John Chance wrote:


"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 10/06/15 07:38, Adrian wrote:
Either of the major parties were happy to go into coalition with
the LDs, neither would partner with UKIP.

complete nonsense. The other main parties will 'coalesce' with whoever
is necessary to gain power and you know it. The demographics made the
LDs a more likely choice up to 2015, that's all. Now there is no talk
of any coalition with anyone.

UKIP is the third most popular party in the UK by votes cast.

But what matters with coalitions is the number of MPs elected,
not the percentage of votes cast.

You can't escape that fact,

You can't escape that fact on the number of MPs elected either.

and if that position improves I can assure you there
will be a scramble of people wanting a coalition with them.

Not unless the number of MPs elected changes dramatically.

LDs and Labour are on the decline, the Tories are barely holding on to
vote share

What matters is MPs elected, not vote share.

- the parties on the move are the SNP and UKIP.

UKIP in fact ended up with only half the number of MPs
elected and couldnt even manage to get Farage elected.

Get over it.

You're the one that needs to do that.

Not at all. UKIP are a little worse in terms of vote share than I hoped -
all credit to a very astute and very dirty campaign by the Tory election
machine - but by and large it was serious gains across the board.

But ended up with half the number of seats and couldnt get Farage elected.

The real news apart from that is the almost total collapse of Labour in
Scotland, and the collapse of the LDS across the shires.

Yes, the result SNP got was much more important.

And the general disaffection with Labour in England, away from the actual
heartlands.

Yes, even the total number of seats that Labour and SNP
combined got is rather pathetic compared with the Tories.

In short the British people didn't feel UKIP were credible enough for
government

That isn't the problem. The problem is that those who chose to
vote for UKIP are so evenly spread across the electorates and
that the FPP voting system very severely punished parties like that.

- fair enough, that's a hill to climb,

Impossible in my opinion.

- they distrusted
Miliband mightily and savaged clegg and the LDs for breaking their
promises and were left with only one viable alternative.

Yes, IMO most of the votes for UKIP are basically protest votes.

Even if they are all in favor of leaving the EU and less immigration,
12% of the voters are useless even for a referendum.

No one really won.

The Tories did.

But the conservatives inherited a government as the least unpopular.

Yes, if they had been more popular they would have got a bigger
margin than they did. Plenty to govern tho and that is what matters.

The really big news was that no one trusts or wants Labour any more.

Yes, but that may change if they can find someone who
appeals to the voters like Blair did. It is certainly clearly that
the voters just aren't interested in old style Labour anymore.

Its broke,

I dont believe that is relevant unless you mean intellectually broke.

its shrinking back to a core of disaffected leftists

But they have come back from that in the past.

Unlikely that they will find another Blair any time
soon, but I said that before Blair showed up too.

and that's fine by me.

Me too. I've never thought that any Labour policy ever made any sense.

"Nightjar.me.uk" "cpb"@ insert my surname here wrote in message
...
On 10/06/2015 07:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/06/15 23:06, Nightjar "cpb"@ wrote:
On 09/06/2015 22:15, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/06/15 16:18, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Nightjar cpb@ insert my surname here.me.uk wrote:
On 09/06/2015 14:00, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Tim Watts wrote:
I see your point, but I disagree that a party that got 12% vote
share is
a "minority".

Is there any official definition of minority when it comes to
political
parties?...

Generally, any party that has so little electoral support that it
has no
realistic prospect of forming or being part of a government.

Ah. Thanks. UKIP supporters will be in denial about this.

ITYM greens or liberal democrats or SNP actually. All polled far less
than UKIP.

Not much use if that doesn't translate to seats in Parliament.

In fact apart from Labour and Tory, UKIP is the ONLY other party likely
to form a national government in the next decade

Going by the demographics of UKIP supporters, a lot of them will have
popped their clogs before then.


Another assertion simply not borne out by the facts.

According to a 2013 YouGov survey, 71% of UKIP supporters are over 50,
compared to the national figure of 46%.

But not many of those would dies in the next decade.

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/03/05...s-ukip-voters/

Another survey, from April this year, showed that their greatest support
came from the over 65s.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/laur...b_6631026.html

Whether you like it or not, the person most likely to support UKIP is a
retired male manual worker, over 65, living in the Eastern counties (with
Yorkshire and Humberside or the Midlands other likely areas), who never
got a higher qualification than GCSE.

That doesnt mean that many UKIP voters will die in 10 years.

The average life expectancy at age 65 for those areas is 18-19 years, but
you can knock two years off that for manual workers, giving a life
expectancy of 16-17 years. As there will be a spread of ages in that
group, I don't think it unreasonable to suggest that a lot of them will be
dead within the next ten years.

I do, but obviously that depends on what you mean by a lot.

It's less clear how many of that geriatric demographic stop bothering to
vote tho.

On 10/06/2015 08:39, Nightjar "cpb"@ wrote:



Whether you like it or not, the person most likely to support UKIP is a
retired male manual worker, over 65, living in the Eastern counties
(with Yorkshire and Humberside or the Midlands other likely areas), who
never got a higher qualification than GCSE.

These are the ones that the UKIP "we will get rid of immigrants"
headlines appealed to, the more intelligent noticed that they always
retracted those headlines a day or two latter. They are also the ones
that are stupid enough to think they do better under labour.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 09:02:52 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

Not at all. UKIP are a little worse in terms of vote share than I hoped
- all credit to a very astute and very dirty campaign by the Tory
election machine - but by and large it was serious gains across the
board.

UKIP's general election votes were actually a drop over the previous
year's European election.

In short the British people didn't feel UKIP were credible enough for
government - fair enough, that's a hill to climb, - they distrusted
Miliband mightily and savaged clegg and the LDs for breaking their
promises and were left with only one viable alternative.

That's a pretty good assessment.

I'd certainly agree with that para.

Clegg would have been better off not being in a coalition - he was no
match in character for Dave and more or less just became his bitch. Any
promises made were pretty much steam rollered.

Basic maths said that was always going to happen. The LDs were very much
the minority partner in the coalition.

I think they actually punched above their weight, and had a much greater
effect than they were given credit for. In 2010, I said the election was
the right result for the country, and I think the coalition did a good
job. I'd have quite liked to see the same again - but, realistically, the
LDs were _always_ going to be the scapegoats. Whoever won 2010 had an
impossible job to do to mop up after the Brown'n'Balls mess - and the
2015 election was always going to hand out some punishment for it. Labour
didn't show that they'd learned a single lesson, and the LDs got the
blame.

I hate the tories stance on university fees.

Trouble is, it's the only one that can possibly work in a country where
40%+ of school-leavers are going to University. Back in the days of fully-
paid fees and large enough grants to support a life of beer and
indolence, less than 10% went on to degree-level education. The wisdom or
necessity of that many going to Uni is another question entirely, of
course, and there's a strong argument that that has an effect on "working-
class" migration from within the EU. You've got a degree (even if it is
Media Studies)? Why should you lower yourself to a job on a building site
or mopping floors or...?

And don't forget that even the current fees are heavily subsidised by
overseas students, with many wanting to cut them back.

So cut back heavily on the number of Uni places, and who'll stop applying
first? The kids from poorer backgrounds, with less family history of
aspiration.

Don't be too happy - unless someone else steps up to the mark as "the
opposition" you will be in the very dangerous territory of a one party
system.

Toothless oppositions happen regularly. Labour were even less relevant
through much of the Thatcher years, and the Tories were in the same place
through a good chunk of the Blair years - and those eras were much
simpler, party-wise.

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
On 09/06/15 22:42, bert wrote:

I didn't say it was less bad, I said it was not perfect. Now perhaps you
can suggest a system that is.

Firstly I did not say I had the answer. I said the current system is
broken and there's no damn excuse for putting up with that just because
there is not an *obvious* alternative. It means some serious works need to
be done.

I still prefer the STV (single transferrable vote). It is not PR but it
does encourage people to vote for who they really want rather than
thinking it is a wasted vote. It was the system favoured by the Student
Union and allied student bodies at York Uni in the 80's.

I had never heard of it prior, but it immediately made perfect sense.

That addresses one problem. But probably not the PR aspect.

I think you probably still have to elect a single constituency bod who is
answerable to the locals as others say.

The only immediate offering I have is to apply a weighting factor to
parliamentary voting. This would lead to the slightly off situation where
my UKIP bloke as a voting multiplier of over 65 (12% of 650 whatever that
is).

And what to do if UKIP had no seats but 10% of the vote - a "ghost" MP?

Perhaps another solution is to look at reforming the 2nd house. One house
as is, the other house fully PR or people appointed by the parties.

You'll rip those to shreds I expect, but this problem demands people start
throwing ideas around until a better solution is found.

Various alternatives have been tried for centuries now
without anything which is obviously better being found.

On 10/06/2015 08:38, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
....
Not at all. UKIP are a little worse in terms of vote share than I hoped
- all credit to a very astute and very dirty campaign by the Tory
election machine

That is what happens in politics but, ultimately, failure is down to the
party, not to somebody else.

....
In short the British people didn't feel UKIP were credible enough for
government - fair enough, that's a hill to climb,...

One that took the Labour Party, over 20 years to even start to climb and
the best part of half a century to complete. UKIP, as essentially a two
issue party, one of which will be decided by the next election, is not
likely to have it that easy.

....
No one really won. But the conservatives inherited a government as the
least unpopular...

They did better than anybody was predicting, even up to the last minute.

....
The really big news was that no one trusts or wants Labour any more. Its
broke, its shrinking back to a core of disaffected leftists and that's
fine by me.

No one party has all the right answers, so we need a change of
government from time to time and Labour is the only realistic
alternative to the Conservatives.

--
Colin Bignell

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 18:21:19 +1000, John Chance wrote:

Yes, IMO most of the votes for UKIP are basically protest votes.

Even if they are all in favor of leaving the EU and less immigration,
12% of the voters are useless even for a referendum.

8.5% of the voters.
12% of the voters who actually voted.

UKIP supporters can safely be assumed to have actively voted.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 09:24:07 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

BTW, not too many people are worried about a diverse population. Many
more might be worried about population density, which is driving up
house prices and making it hard to put in new infrastructure.

Using that as an argument in favour of reducing migration ignores
demographics. It ignores the ageing population, the rapidly-increasing
number of pensioners, and the ever-lengthening average lifespan.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 09:35:14 +0100, Nightjar "cpb"@ wrote:

No one really won. But the conservatives inherited a government as the
least unpopular...

They did better than anybody was predicting, even up to the last minute.

Yet, strangely, as soon as Miliband handed in the towel, three quarters
of the Labour party ran forward to say "Well, it was obvious that it'd
happen..."

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 10:44:34 +0100, Chris Hogg wrote:

Devon rough cider 11d/pint in Exeter pubs in the mid 60's, 1/1d for
rough with a dash of something to make it palatable (blackcurrant or
orange squash, or lemonade). Probably banned on H&S grounds now!

The Geneva Convention predates the mid '60s.

In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:
What I think is irrelevant. We're talking about broken promises made by
the prime minister.

Its hardly surprising that he couldn’t deliver on that promise
when he was stuck with a coalition with the LimpDems.

What legislation did he propose that the LibDems blocked?

We'll see if he can deliver on that now that he has an absolute
majority.

My guess is he won't. Just about every government in recent years has said
they will reduce the numbers - and failed to.

--
*Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
It has occurred to me that people like you Dave, are the reason that so
many people voted for Margaret Thatcher, back in the day, and are now
flocking to UKIP.

1 MP means people are flocking to BNUKIP?

You need treatment for your delusions.

--
*Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 10/06/15 09:09, Adrian wrote:

Isn't the latter pretty much what it is now? There are 788 people sitting
in the Lords. Only 88 (11%) of them are hereditary.

Not in the context that noone voted for them.

If anything, though, going for explicit political appointment would make
the second chamber MORE political, not less - there are currently 234 (30%
) who are not politically aligned. The whole point of the second chamber
is to provide apolitical scrutiny on the political lower chamber.

On 10/06/15 09:31, John Chance wrote:

Various alternatives have been tried for centuries now
without anything which is obviously better being found.

You mean across the world?

Because just getting everyone a FPTP vote at all has only happened in
the last century.

On 10/06/15 10:09, Adrian wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 18:21:19 +1000, John Chance wrote:

Yes, IMO most of the votes for UKIP are basically protest votes.

Even if they are all in favor of leaving the EU and less immigration,
12% of the voters are useless even for a referendum.

8.5% of the voters.
12% of the voters who actually voted.

UKIP supporters can safely be assumed to have actively voted.


That's not a valid assumption unless you can verify it by means of some
polls.

The only valid conclusion about someone who did not vote was that they
did not vote.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
LDs and Labour are on the decline, the Tories are barely holding on to
vote share - the parties on the move are the SNP and UKIP.

And your crystal ball says this trend will continue?

Get over it.

And you need to get over BNUKIP being a 1 MP wonder.

The only good thing is the vast majority of the UK population know exactly
what BNUKIP stand for and realise what the consequences would be if they
ever got power.

--
*A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 10/06/15 10:33, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Adrian
wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 09:02:52 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

I hate the tories stance on university fees.

Trouble is, it's the only one that can possibly work in a country
where 40%+ of school-leavers are going to University. Back in the days
of fully-
paid fees and large enough grants to support a life of beer and
indolence, less than 10% went on to degree-level education.

6% in my day and the grant was nowhere near large enough to support a
life of beer and indolence. Cider, maybe.


I would be fully in favour of grants for students studying disciplines
deemed to be "in need" by the country at the top X universities.

You are right - you can't go funding media studies degrees at the
University of Mudchute. But given we seem to have a shortage of
engineers, medics and a number of other disciplines, I fail to see the
problem with doing the above. The unlucky universities would whine and
the not in demand subject depts would bitch like crazy - well, that's
just unlucky... They are no worse off, they continue as they do now.

In article ,
Tim Watts wrote:
Clegg would have been better off not being in a coalition - he was no
match in character for Dave and more or less just became his bitch. Any
promises made were pretty much steam rollered.

Odd isn't it? Yet he is blamed for the last Tory administration totally
failing their promises to reduce immigration. And much else.

One thing has stood out to me over the last few years.

The government of the day blaming anyone they can regardless when a
promise is broken. But taking all the credit for anything positive.

--
*If all is not lost, where the hell is it?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 10/06/15 11:52, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
It has occurred to me that people like you Dave, are the reason that so
many people voted for Margaret Thatcher, back in the day, and are now
flocking to UKIP.

1 MP means people are flocking to BNUKIP?

You need treatment for your delusions.

Thank you again Dave, for pointing out with such intense bigotry and
hatred, why people are flocking to UKIP

There is of course no such party as BNUKIP and that is a fevered
invention of the cesspit between your ears which you so laughingly call
a brain.

Do you really think that these ridiculous linkages by which you try and
associate UKIP with the BNP, and these cherry picked 'factoids' that
deny the reality that more people voted for Farage than voted for the
SNP, advance your cause? Or make you look like a bitter twisted refugee
from the socialist workers party aware that his whole life has been
dedicated to nothing more than being used and abused by political puppet
masters who have played on his secret resentment at never being
recognised for the genius he always thought he was, are not totally
obvious to anyone who has not already killfiled you?



--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 12:06:50 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

One thing has stood out to me over the last few years.

The government of the day blaming anyone they can regardless when a
promise is broken. But taking all the credit for anything positive.

...."the last few years"...?

On 10/06/15 11:59, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
LDs and Labour are on the decline, the Tories are barely holding on to
vote share - the parties on the move are the SNP and UKIP.

And your crystal ball says this trend will continue?

Get over it.

And you need to get over BNUKIP being a 1 MP wonder.

BNUKIP is a fantasy in your mind Dave.


The only good thing is the vast majority of the UK population know exactly
what BNUKIP stand for and realise what the consequences would be if they
ever got power.


There is no such party as BNUKIP.

I suggest you seek urgent medical attention.



--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 10/06/15 12:06, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
The government of the day blaming anyone they can regardless when a
promise is broken. But taking all the credit for anything positive.

Started with Harold Wilson really, or even Harold Macmillan..


But its not restricted to governments. You display all the same
characteristics.

--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 18:21:19 +1000, John Chance wrote:

Yes, IMO most of the votes for UKIP are basically protest votes.

Even if they are all in favor of leaving the EU and less immigration,
12% of the voters are useless even for a referendum.

8.5% of the voters.
12% of the voters who actually voted.

True.

UKIP supporters can safely be assumed to have actively voted.

Not sure of that. Some of them presumably didnt have anyone in their
electorate to vote for.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 21:26:02 +1000, John Chance wrote:

UKIP supporters can safely be assumed to have actively voted.

Not sure of that. Some of them presumably didnt have anyone in their
electorate to vote for.

UKIP stood in 624 of 650 seats, so that's a fairly minimal number of
potential extra voters. Given that the average UKIP candidate got 6,200
votes, we're talking about a likely extra 160,000 - an extra 0.5% of
votes cast at most.

In practice, I think we can presume that the constituencies they didn't
stand in were ones they would have had significantly less support than
average in.

FWIW, Labour and LD stood in 631, Conservative in 647.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Rod Speed wrote

What I think is irrelevant. We're talking about
broken promises made by the prime minister.

Its hardly surprising that he couldn't deliver on that promise
when he was stuck with a coalition with the LimpDems.

What legislation did he propose that the LibDems blocked?

Any politician with even half a clue doesn't let it get to the
coalition partner actually blocking any of its legislation.

That Dave ain't that stupid.

We'll see if he can deliver on that now that he has an absolute majority.

My guess is he won't.

It may well be a lot harder to do than he expected.

Just about every government in recent years has
said they will reduce the numbers - and failed to.

Presumably because it's a lot harder to
do that to say with the non EU immigrants.

They clearly can't do a damned thing about the EU immigrants.

-

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
On 10/06/15 09:31, John Chance wrote:

Various alternatives have been tried for centuries now
without anything which is obviously better being found.

You mean across the world?

Yep.

Because just getting everyone a FPTP vote at all has only happened in the
last century.

Separate issue to how the voting system is done rather than who gets to
vote.

On 10/06/15 12:48, John Chance wrote:
-

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
On 10/06/15 09:31, John Chance wrote:

Various alternatives have been tried for centuries now
without anything which is obviously better being found.

You mean across the world?

Yep.

Because just getting everyone a FPTP vote at all has only happened in
the last century.

Separate issue to how the voting system is done rather than who gets to
vote.

Have we every had any other type of voting system?

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 13:10:14 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

Various alternatives have been tried for centuries now without
anything which is obviously better being found.

You mean across the world?

Yep.

Because just getting everyone a FPTP vote at all has only happened in
the last century.

Separate issue to how the voting system is done rather than who gets to
vote.

Have we every had any other type of voting system?

By "we", do you mean the UK?

We have d'Hondt regional PR in use currently. Everybody moans about it.
We had a referendum over AV. It got thrown out by a huge majority.
STV is used in Northern Ireland.

There are _dozens_ of different voting systems, some in real-world use,
some not. Some simple, some mind-meltingly complex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
It has occurred to me that people like you Dave, are the reason that
so many people voted for Margaret Thatcher, back in the day, and are
now flocking to UKIP.

1 MP means people are flocking to BNUKIP?

You need treatment for your delusions.

Thank you again Dave, for pointing out with such intense bigotry and
hatred, why people are flocking to UKIP

Pointing out a fact is bigotry and hatred?

There is of course no such party as BNUKIP and that is a fevered
invention of the cesspit between your ears which you so laughingly call
a brain.

Glad it upsets you. You may now have an idea what your continual childish
insults - like the above - result in. Seems to be the only language you
understand.

Do you really think that these ridiculous linkages by which you try and
associate UKIP with the BNP, and these cherry picked 'factoids' that
deny the reality that more people voted for Farage than voted for the
SNP, advance your cause?

How many times does it have to be explained to you that a far larger
percentage of those who could vote for the SNP did so, than for UKIP?
Or are you really so thick you can't see that?

Or make you look like a bitter twisted refugee
from the socialist workers party aware that his whole life has been
dedicated to nothing more than being used and abused by political puppet
masters who have played on his secret resentment at never being
recognised for the genius he always thought he was, are not totally
obvious to anyone who has not already killfiled you?

Did someone say something about being bitter and twisted?

Your favourite bunch of misfits got near wiped out at the election. Left
with one defector as an MP - who'll probably defect again. Get over it and
stop being such a poor looser.

--
*I speak fluent patriarchy but it's not my mother tongue

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Adrian wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 12:06:50 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

One thing has stood out to me over the last few years.

The government of the day blaming anyone they can regardless when a
promise is broken. But taking all the credit for anything positive.

..."the last few years"...?

IMHO, does seem to have got worse than once.

If you believed many politicians, Brown was solely responsible for a
(near) world wide recession.

--
*Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 13:52:49 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Do you really think that these ridiculous linkages by which you try and
associate UKIP with the BNP, and these cherry picked 'factoids' that
deny the reality that more people voted for Farage than voted for the
SNP, advance your cause?

How many times does it have to be explained to you that a far larger
percentage of those who could vote for the SNP did so, than for UKIP?
Or are you really so thick you can't see that?

Indeed.

Of those who could vote for UKIP, 8.5% did so.
Of those who could vote for the SNP, 35.5%+ did so.

I dunno about you, but I make that over four times as high. On that
metric, the SNP did about 1.5x better than any other single party across
the entire UK.

On 10/06/15 13:52, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
It has occurred to me that people like you Dave, are the reason that
so many people voted for Margaret Thatcher, back in the day, and are
now flocking to UKIP.

1 MP means people are flocking to BNUKIP?

You need treatment for your delusions.

Thank you again Dave, for pointing out with such intense bigotry and
hatred, why people are flocking to UKIP

Pointing out a fact is bigotry and hatred?

Show me the fact...



--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 10/06/15 13:54, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Adrian wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 12:06:50 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

One thing has stood out to me over the last few years.

The government of the day blaming anyone they can regardless when a
promise is broken. But taking all the credit for anything positive.

..."the last few years"...?

IMHO, does seem to have got worse than once.

If you believed many politicians, Brown was solely responsible for a
(near) world wide recession.

More lies...
no one has ever said anything like that,.

I am extremely concerned for your mental health Dave.


--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 13:54:49 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

One thing has stood out to me over the last few years.

The government of the day blaming anyone they can regardless when a
promise is broken. But taking all the credit for anything positive.

..."the last few years"...?

IMHO, does seem to have got worse than once.

Nah, the first term of any incoming government'd always be like it -
it's just that we've forgotten over the two subsequent terms of Labour
and three subsequent terms of Conservatives before. It was just as bad
from 1997, and 1979 - and if Labour'd won this time, it'd be just as bad
now.

If you believed many politicians, Brown was solely responsible for a
(near) world wide recession.

I don't think anybody's actually said that - although many have been
accused of saying it. What everybody has pointed out, perfectly
correctly, is that Brown and Balls were responsible for the UK being hit
far, far harder by it than need be.