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Post by olliebean on Jan 11, 2020 22:47:30 GMT
She's somewhat less impressive on policy, unfortunately.
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Post by olliebean on Jan 11, 2020 15:54:40 GMT
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Post by olliebean on Jan 3, 2020 23:17:38 GMT
The goings wrong are massively contrived, of course, but I find myself laughing in spite of that. I really dislike the "Goes Wrong" branding, though - feels like it somewhat spoils the joke.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 14, 2019 20:48:59 GMT
We had a referendum on this in 2011 I think. I actually voted for PR as I thought the FPTP system disproportionally favoured Labour over the Tories. Alternative Vote (AV) is not proportional! I voted against it, for that reason. It's a lot better than FPTP, though, not least because it means a candidate cannot win if the majority of voters in their constituency are against them. But I understand the reasoning, that we're more likely (if still not very, especially with the Tories in power) to get a shot at true PR in the foreseeable future than we would be had we already switched to a different new system relatively recently.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 13, 2019 20:06:10 GMT
They are allowed to choose and most of them choose to wear the burka of the own free will. The whole point of the article was that Denmark at that time was legislating against the burqa - thereby denying women the choice. Johnson was arguing for middle ground - yes, there may be situations where people might want/expect/need to see a person’s face, and in those situations we should be free to request it (though no need for the woman to comply). But otherwise it was a Muslim woman’s right to choose to wear what she wants. And it would have been perfectly possible to make that point without the insulting comparisons to bank robbers and letterboxes.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 13, 2019 16:28:50 GMT
I still think it's peculiar that when you have a majority of voters voting against Conservatives (so a minority for Conservatives), or basically, more votes for the opposition, the Conservatives can win so much seats with a minority vote. This system is totally wrong in my opinion. Now we have the majority of the country disappointed. And stuck with a government that a minority voted for. It works both ways. Labour only had 43.2% of the vote in 1997, which gave them a majority 100 greater than the Tories have now. So it's an unfair system whoever wins. I think there's only ever been one occasion when a majority party in Parliament had a majority share of the vote, way back in 1931 - and even then, the Tories got 76% of the seats with only 55% of the votes.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 13, 2019 15:31:47 GMT
I don't think that is quite true. I immediately thought the same I will admit. Johnson for (at least) ten years does feel abhorrent. But I think the Labour party could win back lots of the seats lost in the Midlands and North East in particular. Don't think they won a seat with a referendum result of vote Leave >55%. But they lost seats votes predominantly to the Brexit party, with small percentages to Tory, Lib Dem and SNP. These votes could be up for grabs again at the next election. We will have to see who takes over the Labour Party and the state of the UK after five more years of Boris. Five years could seem a very long time in some of the poorest constituencies in the country if some of the Brexit warnings come true. Think I heard a stat that the Tory vote only went up 1.42% with massive swings to their party. So there could be lots to play for at the next election. Have to see where we are in five years time. My worry is that where we'll be in five years will be with Labour's chance of winning anything back much reduced through gerrymandering changes to the constituency boundaries. Fully expecting the Tories to bring in this, voter ID, and anything else they can think of to minimise the chance of a democratic win for anyone else.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 13, 2019 14:12:52 GMT
The real outcome of this election: the Leave/Remain share of the vote is as follows: ▪️Leave 47% ▪️Remain 53% And a vast majority of the people voting against the Conservatives. The number of votes for Labour and Libdems combined is already towering above the number of votes for Conservatives. And then I'm not even counting the SNP and other parties. It's amazing how flawed this seat system is. Resulting in seats that do not represent the will of the people. Labour + Lib-Dem is "towering" above the Conservatives by only 0.1%. And although it's probable Labour's second referendum would have resulted in a Remain win, you can't call them an unambiguously Remain party. Much as I'd love this result to be an indication of a 6% majority for Remain, I don't think it's that clear cut.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 13, 2019 14:03:51 GMT
It really doesn't. The Tory vote is 43.6% (with one seat left to declare), which gets them a massive majority of seats because of our stupid first past the post system, but certainly doesn't amount to a majority of the country being united. Unless you meant the approx. 2/3 who were united against Corbyn. Please don’t twist my words into something that allows you to call out yet another result you’re not happy with. 43.6% of people is a decent part of the country. I never mentioned a majority or the number of seats. The full sentence, that you’ve only quoted part of, actually concludes by suggesting the Tory win increases the divide between parliament and the electorate. I'm not sure what point you were making, then, because the Tory vote in 2017 was 42.4% - was that not a decent part of the country? On that basis, I doubt there's ever not been a decent part of the country united behind one thing or another. The country as a whole is still very divided, though, and this election certainly hasn't helped with that.
(I apologise for not quoting you in full btw; my intention was brevity, not distortion.)
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Post by olliebean on Dec 13, 2019 11:39:28 GMT
I know it looks like a decent part of the country is finally united in one way (which hasn’t happened in a long time) It really doesn't. The Tory vote is 43.6% (with one seat left to declare), which gets them a massive majority of seats because of our stupid first past the post system, but certainly doesn't amount to a majority of the country being united. Unless you meant the approx. 2/3 who were united against Corbyn.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 12, 2019 22:13:37 GMT
If Johnson does win a majority I'll be interested to see how he explains not being able to deliver on the many promises he's made. Before he became PM he could always blame others; as leader of a majority party he has no excuse. But I suspect that he won't even bother to explain. He'll just lie, like the Tories always do when they fail to deliver their promises.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 12, 2019 10:27:00 GMT
Tough decision for me - who do I want as Prime Minister: the man who turns up, helps out, and shows compassion when people are in trouble and suffering, even if it means missing the Queen's Christmas Message - or the man who refuses even to look at a picture of a suffering child? Could go either way, really...
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Post by olliebean on Dec 12, 2019 7:33:55 GMT
I can't help wondering what it is about anything Boris Johnson has said or done that makes anyone think his promises are worth anything.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 12, 2019 1:53:24 GMT
No, these are seats which have moved away from Labour. No way they are winning in Surrey, much of Sussex, much of Hampshire etc. etc. There have been a few London seats that have had both parties going for it but that's pretty much it. I think the London centric nature of this board has twisted perceptions. What is happening in Finchley or Kensington is not happening in Manchester, Birmingham, 95% of the North and so on. Blair understood how Lib Dem success worked for him. Sadly, the current lot haven't. That may be so, but it's still pretty cynical and dishonest of the Lib-Dems to encourage people to vote "tactically" for them in seats where they realistically aren't going to win at this election, just to give themselves an advantage in 2024.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 11, 2019 23:44:07 GMT
Much of the switch is, like mine, for tactical reasons, they’ve been targetting just 60 constituencies (30 realistic prospects and 30 to get into a winning position for 2024). This is the problem with the Lib-Dems, isn't it? The point of tactical voting is supposed to be to keep the Tories out now, not to position the Lib-Dems to win in 5 years time. In some of those seats, where they have no realistic chance of winning in this election, by urging people to vote tactically for them they are in fact just splitting the anti-Tory vote and ensuring a Tory victory.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 11, 2019 23:31:07 GMT
The full trailer is coming tomorrow.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 8, 2019 23:30:59 GMT
You in FGG? Sounds a bit like mine, olliebean. Yep, that's the one. Labour are up against it here because of the demographics of the area, but I still reckon they'd have been in with a chance if the Lib-Dems were out of the picture. And I don't think the LDs ever had a chance of winning here, in spite of the dodgy poll result they used on one of their early leaflets, that they don't seem to have managed to reproduce since.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 8, 2019 22:15:53 GMT
I'm not sure how the pollsters are reaching an accurate representation of the 3.2 million new voters, or how they understand the huge numbers of undecided/tacticals in the 60 key seats. It's pin a tail on the donkey stuff, imo. I'm not sure they are, tbh. A lot of it is bound to be guesswork, and from past experience when pollsters guess most of them tend to do so in favour of the Tories.
Unfortunately my constituency is one where Labour possibly could have beaten the Tories were it not for the Lib Dems (a very distant 3rd place in 2017) weaponising the idea of tactical voting and blitzing the area with leaflets talking up their chance of winning and rubbishing Labour's. As it is, even allowing for polling guesswork the anti-Tory vote looks likely to be split right down the middle and the seat will be held by the Tories.
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Post by olliebean on Dec 8, 2019 7:58:11 GMT
What's the venue? The website seems to have forgotten to mention that important detail.
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Post by olliebean on Nov 6, 2019 22:22:21 GMT
So Ozymandias really set back the world technologically in some ways with his fear mongering but then there's airships as a result of Nite Owl and other superhero technology so it's like a weird in-between of past and future. Rule no.1 of alternate-history sci-fi: there's always airships.
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Post by olliebean on Nov 3, 2019 17:59:53 GMT
I see Farage has given up the ghost before the whole nonsense kicks off in favour of sniping on the side. Shame in a way because I had hoped his raving looney party would have split the tory vote. Perhaps it will still fingers crossed! If Farage became an MP he would have to give up his better paying job as an MEP. I can't imagine why he doesn't want to stand.
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Post by olliebean on Nov 3, 2019 11:18:21 GMT
It is very simple. The better Labour does, the worse for Brexit. The worse Labour does, the better for Brexit. I am not making a party point but a psephological one. All the Leave votes go to Johnson. Remain vote is split. I suspect a lot depends on how many of the leave votes go to the Brexit party.
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Post by olliebean on Oct 29, 2019 8:18:11 GMT
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Post by olliebean on Oct 27, 2019 6:50:31 GMT
The coalition was three elections ago. All that happened last time was a grubby bit of bribery. It shouldn't have invalidated their manifesto - but it's rather naive to take a Tory manifesto at face value, in any case.
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Post by olliebean on Oct 25, 2019 22:21:48 GMT
I see as predicted there is a new song "Beautiful Ghosts". Bits of it can be heard in the video here:
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Post by olliebean on Oct 24, 2019 15:01:54 GMT
I think even the likes of Kuenssberg are starting to get miffed at the amount of lying going on - I heard her yesterday describing a couple of things Johnson had said in PMQs as "not entirely true."
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Post by olliebean on Oct 19, 2019 15:33:30 GMT
Baffled by the lack of discounting for this. Theatre less than half sold and the best “deal” is £35 from TKTS. There's been a fair bit of papering.
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Post by olliebean on Oct 13, 2019 14:35:40 GMT
I was 400s starting position and we were randomly assigned stalls Y tickets. I am so chuffed. It does make sense tickets sold out around mid 900s. They were also giving out accessible seats in a separate queue. So mid 900s if most people claimed 2 tickets is about right Only 44 accessible seats and 6 wheelchair spaces, so that's still 1950 standard seats (plus "a limited number of standing positions"). If Mark started at under 1000 and ended at 73, that's a maximum of 926 people who got tickets, ahead of him, i.e. a maximum of 1852 tickets - so he should have got in, unless some of the free tickets were pre-allocated.
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Post by olliebean on Oct 13, 2019 11:58:34 GMT
All gone Ended up as number 73. So close and yet so far! I wonder how that worked out; I would have thought if they were giving away 2000 tickets (1950 not including accessible seat and wheelchair spaces), with a maximum of 2 per person, that a starting position in the mid 900s ought to have guaranteed you tickets. Perhaps some of them were "skimmed off" in advance?
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Post by olliebean on Oct 13, 2019 11:36:16 GMT
The Queue-it FAQ confirms that places are assigned randomly to people who arrive before the queue opens:
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