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LemonDrizzle posted:Seen on a billboard in West London: It's too late to go oop north, register and vote SNP isn't it 
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Apr 25, 2015 08:33
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Got one of those in Stroud. Is it acceptable for major parties to use large billboards to imply a political opponent is (morally equivalent to) a sneaky pickpocket? Seems like if Cameron stood up in the Commons and started calling Salmond a dirty thieving scotch bastard that wouldn't be allowed.But in adverts it's fine?
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Apr 25, 2015 08:33
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Cameron's really owning that morning television blunder.
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Apr 25, 2015 08:34
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I wouldn't vote SNP or Tory.
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Apr 25, 2015 08:40
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Pissflaps posted:I wouldn't vote SNP or Tory. Yes yes, we know Pissflaps
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Apr 25, 2015 08:45
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sebzilla posted:Got one of those in Stroud. For something like this it will be their campaign agent that's responsible if anything is defamatory. Line does get crossed occaisionally but rarely. Very much doubt there will be an SNP reaction to this, in fact if anything it will harden their support.
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Apr 25, 2015 08:45
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directly elected mayors were always a way to enforce the legitimacy of neoliberal reforms in a political environment full of Militant tendency socialists - that is, a peculiar ideological disposition that incapacitates itself when faced with a reality of political constraints on local government revenue. It's a magical process - instead of councillors who all, individually, make hay out of attacking The Man whilst somehow never being The Man themselves, you have this powerful executive position that rolls the nominal responsibility for budget cuts and the credit for council tax cuts all into one. and because militants are militants, at no point does their framework let them figure out that a local government, by design, is both dependent on regressive taxes for revenue and produces only local mandates, not the necessarily national mandate that would be needed for national redistribution. So the deck is stacked to enforce budget constraints at a low level, and enforcing budget constraints at a low level binds localist populist socialism. ironically that is an essentially neoliberal insight. but directly elected local executives were also always vulnerable to city machine ethnic politics, it's the essence of city machine politics since city machines were a thing in the 19th century. when the size of the pie is rigidly limited, then of course successful politics revolves around promising a tight and cohesive group of supporters a bigger slice, and divisions erupt along the most salient way to divide the electorate into insiders and outsiders - that is, visible ethnicity. now it turns out that central government can annex local government if you pull this sort of stuff anyway. The central govt is immune to local capture by concentrated ethnic groups. But can you see the failure mode? It's rather obvious - capture a local executive position along some axis that is nationally salient, do irresponsible things whilst plausibly fudging the numbers, and then let the central govt to shut you down. That is, a local politician who gets to make hay out of attacking The Man whilst never being The Man himself. But such theater is an ill fit with the council, which is itself split along that axis. Minority councilors grumble about dysfunction. Clearly reform is needed! How about empowering the council to check the local executive more carefully...?
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Apr 25, 2015 08:46
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DesperateDan posted:It's too late to go oop north, register and vote SNP isn't it
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Apr 25, 2015 08:49
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namesake posted:
Citation needed. That's a pretty bold claim, and I'm not sure any evidence exists that suggests that fraud on this scale is frequently perpetrated by mainstream politicians in the UK, as generally dislikeable as they may be.
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Apr 25, 2015 08:50
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It's not an ad that's going to hurt the SNP, it's an anti labour ad. Way to stay classy though Tories. I hope it does get a repeat showing the next time they try to persuade us how much they care about us being better together.
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Apr 25, 2015 09:21
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Seems the Tories have gone full English nationalist.
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Apr 25, 2015 09:28
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Pissflaps posted:Seems the Tories have gone full English nationalist. The weird thing is I can't really see what is dragging them there. UKIP are stalling badly in many of their marginal battles and we've just had a poll out saying people are talking about Scotland far too much. It's probably to squeeze soft UKIP votes in Labour areas given Milliband is riding high right now - I reckon they are really struggling to dent the Labour percetange - although I prefer to go with my first instinct that they are just not very nice people.
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Apr 25, 2015 09:33
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It's really stunning how poo poo a job the Tories have done of attacking Labour.
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Apr 25, 2015 09:39
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namesake posted:The postal voting system is dodgy as gently caress. Please explain how.
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Apr 25, 2015 09:51
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Jedit posted:Please explain how. It's no longer a secret ballot for a start. Causes a lot of problems and is open to fraud. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26520836
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Apr 25, 2015 10:01
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LemonDrizzle posted:Seen on a billboard in West London: White out the Y, stick a huge cardboard cut-out of Cameron’s head on top of the figure at right, job done.
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Apr 25, 2015 10:33
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Renaissance Robot posted:White out the Y, stick a huge cardboard cut-out of Cameron’s head on top of the figure at right, job done.
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Apr 25, 2015 10:37
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The trouble is finding partners in crime, dicking about with ladders in the middle of the night is not really a solo activity if you want to get done quick enough to not get caught. Hopefully advances in drone technology will make paint-only defacement easier, with how stable they already are they're perfectly capable of being used as freeform vertical surface printers/plotters, though I don't think I've seen anyone do it yet.
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Apr 25, 2015 10:46
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Cerv posted:It's no longer a secret ballot for a start. Yes, it is. I take your point about "helpful" campaigners, but those are isolated cases. It's unrealistic to believe that barring a direct and open campaign of fraud enough postal votes could be stolen to make a significant difference.
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Apr 25, 2015 10:54
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namesake posted:So as when human rights are selectively used as justification to attack some countries and not others we should accept that election law being selectively prosecuted against minority groups and those that annoy the powerful is a good thing? You realise he was found liable on *multiple* counts right? 1. Personation (voting in the name of another person) - Shahed Ali, a candidate for Rahman's party (THF) had registered himself at two addresses in his ward. Votes were found coming from both addresses (for Mr. Ali) - Monir Syed, an estate agent and THF candidate registered himself at Flat 16, Prioress House in the Bromley ward he was standing. * In 2013 Syed tried to register as a Labour candidate at Flat 16 but the Labour party was not satisfied he actually lived there. He eventually switched parties to THF who accepted him. - Aktaruz Zaman, a THF candiate tried to run in the St. Peter's ward at 312 The Highway. He lost and decided to run in another ward shortly after (that election had been delayed). He changed his name to Mohammed Aktaruzzaman and changed his address to, get this: Flat 16, Prioress House days before the election. - Multiple witnesses attested to neither man living at Flat 16 (and instead had met other people there.) - Zaman aka Aktaruzzaman, it turns out lived, the entire time in Shoreham-by-Sea with his family. He claims to have moved out because the Mortgagee had repossessed. The court got a copy of the land registration for the Shoreham property. There never was a mortgage, and Zaman still owns the place. So this dude had not 1 but 2 false registratons. - Kabir Ahmed, a THF candidate registered at a flat above a shop on 262 Bethnal Green road. Multiple witnesses confirm he didn't live there. The room he claimed to live in with his wife being completely bare save for a bed and a desk and a chair. One witness attended Mr. Ahmed's wedding at his real house in Ilford. I'm not uncomfortable with these key pieces of evidence. 2. Postal vote fraud - Multiple witnesses attesting to Rahman's people showing up, collecting their *incomplete* postal vote cards and telling the card-holders that this is how the votes are cast. - An expert witness (document/handwriting expert) is brought in. Out of the 134 votes they examined, only 2 types of ink were used to fill them out. Indentations on the ballots were inconsistent with what you would see if they were filled out by different people, large numbers of these votes were marked with an X written in a very particular and identifiable way. 3. Bribery - When allocating grants, local councils need to make sure the candidate recipients meet an array of criteria. This is supposed to prevent waste, and other problems. - Grants were allocated to institutions that did not meet the criteria, in lieu of ones that did. - The allocation of these grants was compared against deprivation levels in TH, they *were not* allocated according to that criteria. - The grants *were* heavily disproportionately allocated to regions of TH that supported THF. - A number of institutions WHO DIDN'T EVEN APPLY for grants were awarded grants. One of the worst things I saw in there was the whistleblower retaliation. - A Ms. Cohen who was responsible for overseeing grants in TH Council was found out by Rahman to have been feeding information to the BBC Panorama programme about the alleged grant corruption issues. - Rahman's people took the list of institutions she had put forward for grants (such as the Alzheimer's society) and slashed or defunded them. I can't be bothered to list in detail the rest. You can go read the actual judgement, or if you have already then you're wilfully ignoring the relevant contents. Trying to rubbish it as "oh he used a letter from clerics" is intellectually lazy and probably a wilful attempt to glaze over how damning this 200 page judgement is. namesake posted:Maybe but how is that less legit of a reason for voting for someone because they're mates with your favourite celebrity, support the same football team as you or the Sun backs them? Some things are just important to people and this use of this archaic law is rooted in bigotry. namesake posted:1) There is no way this behaviour is unique to him and yet how often do we see elected officials of main parties being stripped of office? A lopsided deployment of anti-corruption laws which ignore the larger perpetrators is just another means of oppression. Anti-Derivative fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Apr 25, 2015 |
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Apr 25, 2015 10:56
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People are seriously defending Rahman?
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Apr 25, 2015 10:58
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I'll admit to being surprised that his electoral fraud was so egregious. If the heavens opened and a host of angels marched down to pronounce upon Rahman's motivations, I would expect that he genuinely didn't have much to do with the intimidation on the ground or the antics of his cronies. That element may be due to overenthusiasm, expectations that what flies in Dhaka flies in Tower Hamlets, and a siege mentality after the Labour expulsion. I totally think he was favouring his cronies in the bidding process for council services and property sales, though.
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Apr 25, 2015 11:25
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LemonDrizzle posted:Seen on a billboard in West London: I find it hilarious that the Conservatives fought so hard to keep Scotland in the union despite apparently being terrified of the Scottish
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Apr 25, 2015 11:55
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Jedit posted:Yes, it is. Not enforcably secret, so might as well not be. It might not swing a seat, but it devalues the entire basis of democracy if your husband / dad / landlord / boss can coerce you into voting for his preferred candidate.
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Apr 25, 2015 12:34
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ronya posted:I'll admit to being surprised that his electoral fraud was so egregious. If the heavens opened and a host of angels marched down to pronounce upon Rahman's motivations, I would expect that he genuinely didn't have much to do with the intimidation on the ground or the antics of his cronies. That element may be due to overenthusiasm, expectations that what flies in Dhaka flies in Tower Hamlets, and a siege mentality after the Labour expulsion. The judge begrudgingly did not find Rahman liable for intimidation at the polling stations (remember there are many grounds that were put forth, Rahman was found liable for most, but not all. Intimidation was one ground that was not successful.) I'm sure his supporters might take that as a "look see he is not guilty flag" but by saying begrudgingly, I mean that the judge found that the people swarming the polling stations were doing stuff that "would undeniably have amounted to the common law offence of intimidation.", but the electoral version of the intimidation law requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that "‘force, violence or restraint’ or the infliction of ‘temporal … injury, damage, harm or loss… " was used to compel votes in a certain way. Therefore he could not find that the evidence showed anything meeting that standard, although he certainly found awful things happening that affected people's voting patterns. Anti-Derivative fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Apr 25, 2015 |
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Apr 25, 2015 12:40
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Cerv posted:Not enforcably secret, so might as well not be. They can do that anyway, if not quite so effectively. You may as well say that battered women shouldn't be allowed to vote in case their husband has told them what to vote. it's also a bit melodramatic to claim that the whole basis of democracy is devalued by a handful of abusers - and even if it weren't, it still wouldn't be the postal vote to blame. Moreover, the important part of the secret ballot isn't that nobody knows who you voted for. You are, after all, free to tell whoever you like. The important part is that the government doesn't know who you voted for. That's why we throw out any vote whose caster can be directly identified.
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Apr 25, 2015 12:52
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I might as well say what? Never suggested banning people from voting so no. And you're wrong about why the secret ballot came in. It was specifically because landlords and bosses, not the government, we're taking action against people for voting the wrong way back when it was done by a show of hands.
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Apr 25, 2015 13:47
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Cerv posted:And you're wrong about why the secret ballot came in. It was specifically because landlords and bosses, not the government, we're taking action against people for voting the wrong way back when it was done by a show of hands. quote:Many within the establishment had opposed the introduction of a secret ballot. They felt that pressure from patrons on tenants was legitimate and that a secret ballot was simply unmanly and cowardly. Lord Russell voiced his opposition to the creation of a culture of secrecy in elections which he believed should be public affairs. He saw it as 'an obvious prelude from household to universal suffrage'.
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Apr 25, 2015 13:56
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Nick Clegg, for all his talk of disliking them, seems to be ruling out working with anyone but the Conservatives.
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Apr 25, 2015 14:15
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I'm surprised no-one has posted about villa-gate yet, which seems to be the biggest gaff of the election so far. For those who are not aware Cameron has claimed to be a Villa fan but said in a speech that he supported West Ham and then tried to wriggle out it by saying he briefly forgot which team he supported, which he is rightfully being called out on.
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Apr 25, 2015 14:17
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Also, Nicola Sturgeon: History's Greatest Monster.
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Apr 25, 2015 14:24
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It's just all getting a bit depressing, isn't it.
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Apr 25, 2015 14:30
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Is this a joke?
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Apr 25, 2015 14:35
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Chucat posted:Is this a joke? Yes, but we've known that about The Sun newspaper for a while now.
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Apr 25, 2015 14:36
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Prince John posted:It's just all getting a bit depressing, isn't it. To be honest, Dollgate is kinda hilarious. I haven't seen any sign of people taking it seriously rather than with the mockery it deserves. EDIT: Chucat posted:Is this a joke? Nope, the whole Sun article is in the Scotpol thread so you don't even need to give them the pageview if you want to check it out.
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Apr 25, 2015 14:36
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Chucat posted:Is this a joke?
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Apr 25, 2015 14:36
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Chucat posted:Is this a joke?
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Apr 25, 2015 14:36
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Zalakwe posted:The weird thing is I can't really see what is dragging them there. UKIP are stalling badly in many of their marginal battles and we've just had a poll out saying people are talking about Scotland far too much. I saw that poll, it made me laugh. I'm sorry, for once something other than the southeast of England is relevant in an election, are people going to have a tantrum about it? I remember the cringeworthy "love bombing", that didn't last long.
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Apr 25, 2015 14:58
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The complete inability of the Sun to dig up dirt on anyone this election is truly astounding. Also the fact that the Murdoch press in Scotland is so massively in favour of the SNP makes it even more ridiculous.
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Apr 25, 2015 15:11
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a pipe smoking dog posted:I'm surprised no-one has posted about villa-gate yet, which seems to be the biggest gaff of the election so far. For those who are not aware Cameron has claimed to be a Villa fan but said in a speech that he supported West Ham and then tried to wriggle out it by saying he briefly forgot which team he supported, which he is rightfully being called out on. You'd think he would choose Man City since the tories are desperately trying to break in there lately having effectively given up on Birmingham.
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Apr 25, 2015 15:15
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