UK Politics - Matt's Handcock

[The Anti-Targ]

It seems fairly uncontroversial to say that given the opportunity to vote, with credible information and predictions for how things would be, the Brexit the UK ended up with would not get a majority yes vote from the voters. It is less clear whether a sentiment towards Brexit would still be somewhat, or strongly, in favour or not. There is surely a reasonable gap between all people who prefer Brexit over remain and the subset of people who want Brexit no matter the cost.

It's a much less significant issue, but we had a flag change referendum a wee while back. I think it is correct to say that a majority of people wanted to change the flag. So if it had been a straight up and down single vote change the flag probably would have won. But we had a 2 stage vote, where the second vote was current flag vs the most popular proposed new flag. All the flag "remainers" of course voted to keep the flag, but a helluva lot of flag "leavers" absolutely hated the most popular new flag option, and so the end result was a "remain" win.

That's the thing with a two stage process. It might be that a significant majority of people want change, but there may not be a majority of people who want "that" change. it is certainly not a given that even a 65% vote in favour of Brexit in the first round would translate to >50% voting for the Brexit that the government negotiates. Heck even if the govt negotiated a super soft Brexit, it's possible a the hard Brexiters would vote no on it because they would prefer to keep the enemy in place (membership of the EU) to fight for a better Brexit, than to accept a weak arsed Brexit that will be much harder to fight against.

I am also reminded of the Australian republic referendum. If memory serves, a majority of Australians want to be a republic. But the version of a republic that was put to voters (I don't know the details) lost the referendum because most people didn't like what was proposed. So lots of republic supporters  voted no to the proposal. I expect we might end up in a similar situation if / when it comes time for us to seriously ask the question about becoming a republic.

[ants]

A two-stage process's impact revolves entirely around the order. If you had "vote preferred method" then "vote Brexit", it likely fails. As it sounds like your flag one did. If you have "in/out", and then have "we're leaving, which option is best" then the first referendum determines if you move forward, the second only determines then the preferred method.

What happened in Australia was as you say how it happened (and I voted yes and would vote vehemently no against other options). That comes back to whether people would want that order.

[SeanF]

An extremely narrow win for Labour against the odds in Batley & Spen.  Pre-Hartlepool, this would have been considered a dire performance for an opposition in mid-term.  Now, it's a relief.

[Spockydog]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Now, it's a relief.

Not for me it's not.

If Labour had lost, that would probably have been the beginning of the end for Starmer. 

Now we're stuck without a functioning opposition for the foreseeable future. 

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

7 minutes ago, SeanF said:

An extremely narrow win for Labour against the odds in Batley & Spen.  Pre-Hartlepool, this would have been considered a dire performance for an opposition in mid-term.  Now, it's a relief.

8000 people voted for Galloway?

How depressing

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

8000 people voted for Galloway?

 

The idiot's gone full-Trump and is threatening to challenge the result in court.

He came third.

[Derfel Cadarn]

2 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

The idiot's gone full-Trump and is threatening to challenge the result in court.

He came third.

Does he just drift from constituency to constituency, looking for attention and votes?

Apparently not the first time he’s challenged a result; this time his posters font size didnt comply with regulations, he didnt bother changing them, so the council took his posters down

[mormont]

Galloway still got more votes in Batley and Spen than his party did in the whole of Scotland. Not sure what that says, but I can guess what George thinks about it. 

[A wilding]

1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Does he just drift from constituency to constituency, looking for attention and votes?

Yes, and he is specifically after British Muslim votes. He tends to do a lot of dog whistling in their direction.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, A wilding said:

Yes, and he is specifically after British Muslim votes. He tends to do a lot of dog whistling in their direction.

It looks like he took votes off Labour, but he also took votes off the Tories and may have inherited a lot of the independent voters from last time around, so things ended up being more or less status quo, though Labour's majority was slashed from over 3,500 to 320. But turn-out was also 15,000 down on 2019.

[BigFatCoward]

Mr and Mrs Gove are getting divorced. Apparently there is nobody else involved. 

[Deedles]

3 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Mr and Mrs Gove are getting divorced. Apparently there is nobody else involved. 

I heard there was no other woman involved, certainly.

 

re Batley and Spen. Jeez Galloway is odious. While I think Owen Jones can make good points, he looked horribly comfortable with GG. The bravery of Kim Ledbetter to stand is phenomenal, but I have to think the Hancock scandal came at just the right time for that win. 

[williamjm]

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

An extremely narrow win for Labour against the odds in Batley & Spen.  Pre-Hartlepool, this would have been considered a dire performance for an opposition in mid-term.  Now, it's a relief.

They did a good job of expectation management with all the advance predictions of disaster meaning that an extremely narrow victory in a long-time Labour seat can be portrayed as a success.

1 minute ago, Deedles said:

re Batley and Spen. Jeez Galloway is odious. While I think Owen Jones can make good points, he looked horribly comfortable with GG. The bravery of Kim Ledbetter to stand is phenomenal, but I have to think the Hancock scandal came at just the right time for that win. 

I don't know if Hancock's indiscretions would change a lot of opinions but the margin of victory was so close that it wouldn't take many people making a different decision.

It a nice story that Jo Cox's sister has been elected to her old seat.

[kiko]

7 hours ago, williamjm said:

It a nice story that Jo Cox's sister has been elected to her old seat.

Actually, as someone not from the UK this is a bit weird. Is it common, like in the US, that seats are "inherited"?

[SeanF]

15 hours ago, Werthead said:

It looks like he took votes off Labour, but he also took votes off the Tories and may have inherited a lot of the independent voters from last time around, so things ended up being more or less status quo, though Labour's majority was slashed from over 3,500 to 320. But turn-out was also 15,000 down on 2019.

It's a good example of a seat where the UKIP/indpendent right wing vote does not automatically go over to the Conservatives, in the absence of such a candidate (unlike Hartlepool).

[Spockydog]

Fucking state of this clown. 

 

 

[mormont]

2 hours ago, kiko said:

Actually, as someone not from the UK this is a bit weird. Is it common, like in the US, that seats are "inherited"?

Not common, no. There are political dynasties (the current Scottish Labour leader is the son of a prominent Labour politician, there's the Kinnocks of course, many more) but they don't tend to stand in the same seats. This was an unusual set of circumstances.

54 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Fucking state of this clown. 

 

 

This is just Johnson doing what UK PMs have done for decades: wanting all the benefits of being in the EU with none of the responsibilities or restrictions. The only difference is that we have now left but still think we should be treated as if we hadn't, at least when it suits us.

[DaveSumm]

2 hours ago, kiko said:

Actually, as someone not from the UK this is a bit weird. Is it common, like in the US, that seats are "inherited"?

To be clear, she still had to win the election. She didn’t get handed the status of MP, although you could argue she sort of inherited the right to fight the election in the first place, and in a Labour ‘safe’ seat (turned out not to be that safe this time).

[Spockydog]

14 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Mr and Mrs Gove are getting divorced. Apparently there is nobody else involved. 

And now he's under pressure over whether he broke any Covid social-distancing laws during this 'separation'. At the moment he is refusing to say.

This isn't going to end well for him, or his private life. And I do have sympathy, but not much.

 

 

[Spockydog]

Oh, look. Another benefit of our strong and stable Tory government.

DVLA delays: call for licence extensions as complaints flood in

Quote

Motorists left for months without a valid driving licence are calling on the government to automatically extend dates for a year, and help clear the backlog, as complaints about the DVLA continue to pour in.

Since Guardian Money highlighted last week how the agency was taking months to process licence renewals and address exchanges we have heard from more exasperated customers, some of whom face losing their jobs if vital ID documents or licences are not returned soon.

Those whose licence was revoked have described endless waits to get it back and have put their lives on hold as a result because they are not legally allowed to drive until the new document arrives.

The DVLA claimed last week that applications requiring a manual intervention were taking six weeks to process, but that applications made via its website were working normally.

“Nonsense,” cried a number of people who contacted Guardian Money this week, some of whom have been waiting a year or more for their application to be processed. While lots of people making online driving licence renewals have reported receiving them back in record time, others have reported long delays, including some new applicants for provisional licences.

Last week it was reported that 800,000 letters are waiting to be opened at the DVLA’s Swansea offices with a further 60,000 arriving each day. Workers were again on strike for three days this week, in a long-running dispute over Covid working conditions.

Can confirm the above shambles. I have been waiting over seven months for my new photo licence to be issued.