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THM - the vote is being represented as a landslide for leave of course, whereas you and I (and even Jamba) know it was half and half on a vote where the leavers were always going to get more excited (and actually get out of bed) than the remainers.
Orwell would love some of the democracy we're getting (actually as a socialist internationalist he probably wouldn't, but he'd recognise the plot).
PS - not criticising folk for working out you actually have to vote to win a vote.
igm - Member
THM - the vote is being represented as a landslide for leave of course, whereas you and I (and even Jamba) know it was half and half on a vote where the leavers were always going to get more excited (and actually get out of bed) than the remainers.
Indeed, someone (I think J Hartley Brewer) said it was the biggest electoral mandate for 50 years which at 17 million is true, Blairs best was 13 million, but with 16.9 million voting against, it was also the biggest electoral non mandate...
[i]Hyperbole - May has the smallest governing majority since Harold Wilson/James Callaghan in 1974 [/I]
Except she's got both of the largest parties voting for it, and a weak official opposition leader who's lost the plot.
"Britain is a nation of racist dole scroungers"......... It all has the intellectual qualities of Donald Trump and the Daily Mail.
Would you deny that 40years of DM headlines have poisoned the debate? Would you deny that demographically the old and the uneducated were more likely to vote out? Would you deny that those areas that will be hardest hit are now worrying about losing EU money? Or fishermen who were shafted by MR Farage voted Brexit?
Mol even pretends this is undemocratic.
I certainly don't.
I'm saying democracy isn't functioning well.
I met a very twitchy vet on the way back from the Alps. He was complaining the government hadn't put together a case for leaving therefore he felt bullied into voting remain and therefore voted leave.
I think he had a large animal practice and had just worked out what Brexit was likely to mean for a) farm subsidies in the long term and b) NZ lamb and US beef import prices.
Not guaranteed of course, but more than possible.
Yes you heard that right. Voted leave because the remain supporting government hadn't said enough positive things about leaving.
I wonder if he'll be able to afford to ski in a year or two?
Agreed. Hence my call - largely rejected here - than we now ALL have a responsibility to try to make this work rather than stick our heads in the sand and/or stand crying its not fair,
No.
the vote is being represented as a landslide for leave of course, whereas you and I (and even Jamba) know it was half and half on a vote where the leavers were always going to get more excited (and actually get out of bed) than the remainers.
Oh for god's sake this is absolute bollocks, it is commonly accepted that the status quo has a very significant advantage in referendums add to that the much greater resources available and used by the Government to influence the campaign and there is no doubt that Leave were significant underdogs.
I'm saying democracy isn't functioning well.
Oh Whoopie Doo another redefinition of democracy because the vote didn't go your way - have you mentioned you losing your rights on this page yet? Better get that in too.
igm - there's nowt as thick as folk...
Oh Whoopie Doo another redefinition of democracy because the vote didn't go your way
Now that's bollocks.
You may like to imagine me as a petulant whiney remainer, but perhaps you should consider the arguments rather than simply raving slightly about me.
For what it's worth (not much, I expect) but I've always said that democracy doesn't function well. Even when we had government for which I voted. I've always said it because it's blatantly obvious to anyone who thinks about it a bit.
I doubt you'd be as cocky if remain had won, or if we had a Green government or something.
Oh for god's sake this is absolute bollocks, it is commonly accepted that the status quo has a very significant advantage in referendums add to that the much greater resources available and used by the Government to influence the campaign and there is no doubt that Leave were significant underdogs.
Both sides had access to greater resources as you put it, as both sides were from the ruling party. And as the ruling party they also had access(in the pockets of) to certain news corporations who have spent the last couple of decades poisoning the EU well.
El-Bent Remain had a massive rescource advantage, including the entire Civil Service which was explicitly prevented from answering Leavers questions or doing anything to help. Remain spent more money and that even excludes the £9m leaflet. Then you have all the global political interference from Obama to IMF, OECD etc.
TMH Not being in the EU won't "fix" our trade deficit but it will help.
I'm new to this thread: anyone care to summarise the plot and main characters? 😉
Democracy functions fine, but people are finding the liberal democratic consensus is not quite as widely held as they thought. You will be pleased to know our Democracy Index (compiled by the Economist) improved during the year. So Brexit improves democracy, who would have thought it.
I doubt you'd be as cocky if remain had won, or if we had a Green government or something.
I would be much cockier I voted remain and frankly with a fair wind I should do very well in the unlikely event that the Green's came to power - although I would never vote for it - every cloud and all that.
El-Bent Remain had a massive rescource advantage, including the entire Civil Service which was explicitly prevented from answering Leavers questions or doing anything to help. Remain spent more money and that even excludes the £9m leaflet. Then you have all the global political interference from Obama to IMF, OECD etc.
But leave had a bigger resource. The newspapers.
Democracy functions fine, but people are finding the liberal democratic consensus is not quite as widely held as they thought. You will be pleased to know our Democracy Index (compiled by the Economist) improved during the year. So Brexit improves democracy, who would have thought it.
As said further up the thread , democracy only works if the population have access to all the relevant information, that wasn't going to happen when you have newspaper organisations like the ones this country has. Democracy has been perverted.
jambalaya - MemberEl-Bent Remain had a massive rescource advantage, including the entire Civil Service which was explicitly prevented from answering Leavers questions or doing anything to help. Remain spent more money and that even excludes the £9m leaflet. Then you have all the global political interference from Obama to IMF, OECD etc.
I'll show this to a mate of mine just to wind him up. He'll have been one of those that was explicitly prevented from answering questions filtering the info, just for your info.
#Bullcrap
Democracy functions fine
So you think it's fine that people with no idea about a particular subject are allowed a direct vote in what the country does regarding it?
Maybe I should set up a STW poll on whether or not I should use a finite state machine or simply temporal reasoning over events in this demo I'm working on. That would be democratic, wouldn't it?
Democracy has been perverted.
It's been like this for decades, if not forever.
But leave had a bigger resource. The newspapers.
TV is far more important than the newspapers which were split anyway - Telegraph, Express, Sun and Mail were Brexit. Mirror, Guardian, Independent, Times and FT were remain. The former have more readers, the latter drive TV's news agenda more.
Leave definitely campaigned better.
So we ended up with the result that had the best campaigners, not the result that's best for the country. Is that 'functioning' democracy? Yes and no....
So you think it's fine that people with no idea about a particular subject are allowed a direct vote in what the country does regarding it?
Absolutely, Tetlock's research does not indicate any significant difference in decision making ability to the well informed/experts vs the uninformed.
One of Tetlock's best findings is that there is an inverse correlation between the accuracy of the forecast and the fame of the forecaster.
jambalaya - Member
El-Bent Remain had a massive rescource advantage... Remain spent more money...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39075244A total of more than £32m was spent on the campaign - with the Leave side funded by donations totalling £16.4m, outgunning the Remain side's £15.1m.
Easy now Jamba, we all know leave spent £350m a week...
No fibs unless they're big ones
Tetlock's research does not indicate any significant difference in decision making ability to the well informed/experts vs the uninformed.
I'm not sure you're interpreting that research correctly in this situation.
But even if you are, and uninformed people are as likely to get it wrong as informed people, then we should have just tossed a coin, shouldn't we? The fact the result wasn't 50/50 would indicate that it was the quality of the campaign that won it. THEREFORE the result is simply the wishes of the group who had the better campaign. And that smaller group got their way. Doesn't sound very democratic...
Think you've just torpedoed your own argument.
TV is far more important than the newspapers which were split anyway - Telegraph, Express, Sun and Mail were Brexit. Mirror, Guardian, Independent, Times and FT were remain. The former have more readers, the latter drive TV's news agenda more.The daily mail both in newspapers and online readership absolutely trumps all the others...I wonder which side they were on?
Absolutely, Tetlock's research does not indicate any significant difference in decision making ability to the well informed/experts vs the uninformed.Thats rather lifting a single line out of Tetlock's research results.
Brexit is all about the non-experts being right after all
there will be no downsides 🙄
Think you've just torpedoed your own argument.
You shouldn't judge others based on your own abilities, you asked, to paraphrase, whether I was happy the uninformed could vote, which I am, especially because there is alot in Tetlock's work about the failure of "experts" to be better than average forecasters.
But you see I don't care what the "thereotically right" decision is - because in a democracy the right decision is the one the majority voted for - or to use a management phrase, bought into - and that in this case is Leave.
because in a democracy the right decision is the one the majority voted for - or to use a management phrase, bought into - and that in this case is Leave.
I'd worry if a manager bought into something and then didn't try and change it once they realised that they'd been duped. But that's just me.
alot in Tetlock's work about the failure of "experts" to be better than average forecasters.
But in Tetlock are the uninformed being campaigned at?
If knowledge makes no difference to outcome of an election then what's the point?
because in a democracy the right decision is the one the majority voted for - or to use a management phrase, bought into - and that in this case is Leave.
But why do we have democracy? It exists as an attempt to create a good system of government. And in this case, I do not believe it is in the country's best interests; but more importantly I do not believe most people would consider it in their best interests if they understood the issues.
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08gx81y ]BBC Radio 4 - Analysis[/url]
Def worth listening to this programme
How do the SNP sell a second referendum?
AnalysisCould a second referendum on Scottish independence yield a different result? In September 2014 when Scotland voted against becoming an independent country it seemed like the question had been settled for the foreseeable future. All that changed on June 23rd 2016 when the UK voted to leave the EU. Just a few hours later - before she'd even been to bed - Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was already talking about the prospect of another vote on independence. Ever since she has been ramping up the rhetoric. But what would the SNP's strategy be second time around?
There's a massive complication once you include this in the Brexit mix
1. Another Scottish Referendum, Scotland leaves, UK no longer exists and England/Wales lose power and political stature in the world - and probably wealth as we lose investment attractiveness
2. Another Scottish Referendum, Scotland stays in UK and therefore forced to leave EU - cue decades of resentful Scottish Nationalism as Scots, who voted in c60% are furious with Little Englanders who forced them out of EU. Let's not forget how dangerous motivated Nationalism is...
3. No Scottish Referendum, Scotland stays in UK and forced to leave EU - see pt 2
Another aspect, just like the Northern Ireland question which absolutely was not mentioned in the campaign, and was absolutely not a known quantity at the time we were at the polling booths. Both are potential tinderboxes given the social and political histories of both situations...
This is what happens when you take advantage of fear and parochical ignorance - all kinds of consequences which were obvious except to the people making the decision...
But why do we have democracy? It exists as an attempt to create a good system of government.
Not really, we have democracy because it is representative which should mean it is reasonably stable and fair and that in itself is a good thing.
The daily mail both in newspapers and online readership absolutely trumps all the others...I wonder which side they were on?
More tripe
[url= https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/77222/News-2015-report.pdf ]Read page 16 of this slide pack[/url] - BBC 1 has nearly 5 times the reach of the Daily Mail and Mail Online.
I guess all that the SNP need to succeed is to get Theresa May to refuse to have a second referendum.
Mefty - diffence with the BBC is they try and present both sides of the argument to the point of trying to give them equal air time. Even when one side is blatantly cobblers.
Well you know, b r, time and indeed postings on this thread aren't exactly linear. Sometimes they loop back
[i]Mefty - diffence with the BBC is they try and present both sides of the argument to the point of trying to give them equal air time. Even when one side is blatantly cobblers. [/I]
We've done this, probably 100 pages back - creationism vs evolution
Anyway, good to see the anti-Brexit campaign has started in earnest this week. Been too long coming but they seem to be settling in for a long fight - years maybe decades from what I'm hearing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/06/anti-brexit-billboards-appear-across-uk/
Mefty - diffence with the BBC is they try and present both sides of the argument to the point of trying to give them equal air time. Even when one side is blatantly cobblers.
As do all TV broadcasters, their combined reach is so much greater that people who blame the newspapers are throwing stones at David rather than Goliath.
He's got a point, UKIP only have one MP.
The BBC gives them far far far more air time than the lib dems..
As do the tabloids.. BBC political reporting is rapidly becoming a joke.
Mefty - Either you're missing the point or you're making a point at cross purposes to me.
The Mail prints a piece of blatant cobblers and the BBC treats it as a valid representation of one side of the argument.
Whereas is they were truly balanced they'd say the Mail printed cobblers and here is a balanced view.
The issue is that in trying to be balanced they end up giving credence to a bunch of quasi-religious fanatics like the Mail, Express and occasionally Telegraph (the last of whom should know better).
The post above gives a very good example of the kind of thing I mean.
BBC political reporting is rapidly becoming a joke.
Watch ITV, they hardly ever mention UKIP, and they give the LibDems loads of air time.
Sadly it's becoming a case of the tail is wagging the dog.
The BBC gives them far far far more air time than the lib dems..
Because it is not based on just the number of MPs -[url= https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2016/review-ofcoms-party-election-broadcast-regulations ] see Ofcom statement on party election broadcasts[/url] which shows the basis of their thinking.
The Mail prints a piece of blatant cobblers and the BBC treats it as a valid representation of one side of the argument.
I must admit I don't watch TV news very often, but I have never seen this at all, and certainly don't hear it on the Radio. They go to primary sources, not secondary sources for news. On the Today programme, there is a one minute review of the papers every hour (?) - that is it.
Mol, you really are struggling with democracy aren't you?
Why don't you just admit you don't like the result, it has SFA to do with democracy other than you are not prepared to accept that it doesn't always give you the results tha you don't want.
You know better, the winners didn't understand the issues - bravo!
C4 News is where its at imo.
C4 News is where its at imo.
I tried it a few times, but its self regard which is even worse than the others channels made me switch off quickly - for me TV news is too much about the presenters and the correspondents - I prefer news without ego - Sarah Montagu on the Today programme is a very good interviewer.
Because it is not based on just the number of MPs - see Ofcom statement on party election broadcasts which shows the basis of their thinking.
I'm not talking about party political broadcasting, I'm talking general sentiment, and who they have on news night..