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The 'Take it Outside' thread This thread will no longer be moderated ***
T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "I was thinking more of technical abilities. You have to be able to understand how certain things work, be able to talk to people on the big stage etc."Well, yes. There would be problems - as with any system, and it would be interesting to work them out, but I still think some version of it could work.
It is not an out of the box ready to go fully worked out plan or anything. It would need some tinkering to get it up and running.
I presume the idea's proponents are looking for some sort of wisdom of the crowd effect.
At least, it does get rid of two big problems, political careerists and the current narrow choice of those who we get as politicians now with their all too similar backgrounds and lack of real diversity.
There was a time I nearly understood logarithms and their proofs, but that was a long time ago.
some choiceFox forced to resign over corruption
May will revoke human rights act
Crabb is a homophobe
Leadsom has legal but unethical tax & offshore arrangements
Gove well where does one start...
Marc wrote: "more often than not I vote none of the above anyway and render my ballot spoiled"Then let me tell you what happens to your ballot paper afterwards.
All the ballot papers arrive in the counting hall - usually a sports hall. They are counted several times over by volunteer staff. I've done it. It's a fun job, although it can be exhausting.
First you count the number of ballot papers in each box to check that you have the number logged by the presiding officer. This is to prevent fraud (ie someone stuffing in extra ballot papers).
Then you count again, separating the ballot papers into piles for each candidate. Any unclear ballot papers are put to one side for the wonderfully named "dubious clerk" to take a look at. When the count is complete, all the dubious ballot papers are handed to the Returning Officer, or in the case of the Referendum, the Counting Officer. He or she will sit down with the candidates and decide what to do with each dubious paper.
If there is a sense that the voter wanted to make a mark for one candidate then the Returning officer will suggest that. Spoilt or unclear ballot papers are counted but otherwise ignored.
The fun bit comes when the Returning Officer reads out the spoilt ballot papers to the candidates. I've seen a couple, complete with f's and other unsavoury letters of the alphabet, which have given everyone a good chuckle.
Then when the Returning Officer/ Counting Officer reads out the results they say how many votes were spoilt, illegible or otherwise disallowed.
It lightens up the mood in the counting hall, but doesn't achieve much else. But if it makes you feel better, go right ahead. Sometimes we all need to blow off a bit of steam.
while I acknowledge it achieves nothing it is not just blowing off steam. It is an expression of my lack of regard for the candidates and their parties, yet I will not just neglect my hard fought right to vote. I do not use profanities, though I suppose 'none of the above' has probably by now lurched into cliche status.The dubious clerk sounds like the Premier League's Dubious Goals Panel.
Personally, I think the e-petition has largely replaced the spoilt ballot paper as the best way of getting a point across. Spoilt ballot papers tend to all get lumped together, but a petition shows the point that you want to get across.
Marc wrote: "while I acknowledge it achieves nothing it is not just blowing off steam. It is an expression of my lack of regard for the candidates and their parties, yet I will not just neglect my hard fought r..."None of the above has been the fastest growing political party in the UK since the 1990s...
I'm sure I read somewhere that the number of people who don't show to vote would have won every election since 1997, having a higher % than the winners...
Jim wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "The remain camp had 40 years and a 6 month referendum to make the case for Europe. That they failed, is a damning indictment of the calibre of politician we have these days...As for..."
Prior to the referendum, I watched some of the old EEC referendum debates on youtube. The quality of the debate between the 1970s, and that shambles we had last week was like night and day...
For some strange reason, politicians in the 1970s didn't treat the general public like idiots...
Meurig Raymond the NFU president us local and he said this todayhttp://www.westerntelegraph.co.uk/new...
He's a decent chap and very sensible.
R.M.F wrote: "For some strange reason, politicians in the 1970s didn't treat the general public like idiots......"A politician who was in his fifties in the 1970s had almost certain spent the war in uniform. He'd mixed with a vast assortment of people, shared the same latrine and slept under the same tarpaulin
I also get the impression that the general public too in 70's wasn't quite so badly educated and therefore the gap wasn't so wide. Socially yes it was enormous but the working man wasn't stupid.
I'd say the working man from the 70s was at least as stupid as he is today.The debates you're viewing from the 70s had a very different audience and can't really be compared to what gets shown on Sky News.
I think the science of influencing people has advanced since the 1970s. Modern politicians now know much more about how to make an impact through techniques like soundbites and statement which affect people on an emotional level.Sadly this means that politics is now less about a well argued debate and more about the psychologists and spin doctors manipulating us.
You're probably right Michael, he may have been but as he had to write and post a letter to the papers on an issue rather than just put his intimate thoughts on Facebook or online forum its given me the impression he had more sense :o).That quote about better to appear to be a fool than open your mouth and confirm it. Or words to that effect come to mind. I am not unaware of irony here.
Will wrote: "I think the science of influencing people has advanced since the 1970s. Modern politicians now know much more about how to make an impact through techniques like soundbites and statement which affe..."There is a certain amount of truth in what you say, but people are also fed up of coached MPs dodging and evading questions. They can see through that bull, as well.
Michael Cargill wrote: "I'd say the working man from the 70s was at least as stupid as he is today.The debates you're viewing from the 70s had a very different audience and can't really be compared to what gets shown on..."
Lending Libraries were very popular back then. The old library where I live was built by factory owners for their workers, and included works by Plato, Xenophon, John Locke etc etc which were widely read, according to the old records, so I don't buy this idea that working people are incapable of making the big decisions.
Stupid people exist at all levels of society, from top to bottom...
Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "You're probably right Michael, he may have been but as he had to write and post a letter to the papers on an issue rather than just put his intimate thoughts on Facebook or online forum its given m..."You have to plan out a letter - it's more complicated than a tweet, and more thought goes into it.
Jim wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "For some strange reason, politicians in the 1970s didn't treat the general public like idiots......"A politician who was in his fifties in the 1970s had almost certain spent the wa..."
Good point.
I was brought up in Nottingham. John Player and Jesse Boot were my parents employers. You're quite right about philanthropic employers, they did provide education facilities, libraries, endowed the hospital and had very good recreational and convalescent homes. I can remember the library in Boots as I worked there as a Saturday girl. They also encouraged night school attendance.
Marc wrote: "good article on "The Sociology of Brexit"http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/..."
very interesting
This is interesting:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics...
It seems as if there are a lot of unhappy people on both sides of the debate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics...This one was also dismissed by Liam Fox today as not correct. It sounds as if they all have different ideas of the legalities. If it's true we are being governed by a load of blaggers who don't know how to do their jobs.
have we only just realised this? Westminster used to be dominated by the number of lawyers who were MPs. Yet they unfailingly oversaw the framing of bad laws that left loopholes you could drive a bus through. Clause 28 for all our opposition, sunk into redundancy because it was impossible to uphold its parameters legally.
I think no-one is really sure how Article 50 would work because it's never been used before. But the EU's version is far more likely to be accurate that Liam Fox's hopeful interpretation. Here's article 50 and it's pretty clear that the notification comes before the negotiation. It seems to be another case of the Leave campaign making things up as they go along and hoping we don't notice.
Article 50
1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.
A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.
The EU lady commissioner seemed to know her job. The fact that these laws that were set by the EU made it all the more rigid binding and very restrictive makes you wonder why they were agreed to in the first place. But not to be aware of them and be in office is unbelievable.
Trust me, I've dealt with senior ministry staff who are not in post long enough to know the regulations that pertain to their own ministry. There is just so much regulation. If you want to know about agricultural regulation, you're best going to a body like the NFU or CLA because they have staff who've spent thirty years dealing with it, not four or five at the most
Strangely, that's the benefit of having an unelected civil service, whether it is a union or Government department or the EU Commission. Politicians come and go, but the civil servants hang around and get to know what they're talking about.
Will wrote: "Strangely, that's the benefit of having an unelected civil service, whether it is a union or Government department or the EU Commission. Politicians come and go, but the civil servants hang around ..."In theory. But to give you an example, I was working with the team form Defra putting together the sheep eid regulations, I represented one of the farming organisations.
The existed for just over two years. The lady leading it made great efforts to keep it together and in the course of the period lost about half to maternity, promotion, moving because spouse had good new job or retirement
And promotion was often out of Defra
Three years later when the EU demanded that the regulations were re-worked, none of the original team were available
She lost half of the team to maternity or other changes ... so she kept the other half? That sounds like a good result to me. This glass is half full.People get promoted. They find new jobs. They have babies. That's life. We can't stop it. What do you want to do? Force people not to have kids for your convenience? Stop good people from being promoted?
I really do think that we ought to get away from this idea that the world exists to serve you or me. We need to make the best of what we are given and see each argument from both sides.
The civil service isn't what it used to be. Political appointments under Tony Blair of non qualified but useful (to him) appointments undermined the integrity of the service. At one time career civil servants were not allowed to be paid up members of political parties but I don't know if that is still the case.
Made me laugh Mikey, I did wonder if it contained malware but curiosity got the better of me.
Yes, it took me a while to see the joke too, because I really didn't want to click on it. Good one!
If it were up to me, article 50 would be getting invoked right now, but as always with the Tories, it's party before country...To have the PM abandon ship in the middle of the biggest crisis since WW2, is a dereliction of duty on a scale I've never seen before...
I've been scratching my head for a historical comparison, but I've yet to find one...
David Cameron had little choice. He can't lead a party into a direction that he doesn't believe in. If he stayed as leader and it subsequently went wrong he would be criticised for not doing his best to implement Brexit.That's not dereliction of duty. That's him doing his duty.
Invoking article 50 right now would compound an already grim economic situation by ruining our negotiating position with the EU (poor as it is) and by causing an instant economic shock as the clock starts ticking down to the two year deadline.
Two years is nowhere near enough time to negotiate anything to replace EU membership. The negotiations with Canada have taken seven years so far.
No, the two things that the Tories are doing right at the moment are (1) to dig a very big hole and throw Gove and Boris into it, and (2) delay signing Article 50 until we have a better idea of what sort of a mess we are heading towards.
The real trick here is that the Tories really ought to be calling a general election to get a fresh mandate, but they don't want to do that because they are afraid they will lose.
I'm not sure who the Tories could lose it to?Labour isn't going to regain seats in scotland and nor is it going to win those vital English market towns, and is only likely to lose heartland votes up North to UKIP
Will wrote: "She lost half of the team to maternity or other changes ... so she kept the other half? That sounds like a good result to me. This glass is half full.People get promoted. They find new jobs. They..."
It was in reply to your comment "civil servants hang around and get to know what they're talking about."
They don't. They stay longer than Politicians, but they still don't stay long enough to have any sense of continuity
R.M.F wrote: "ITo have the PM abandon ship in the middle of the biggest crisis since WW2, is a dereliction of duty on a scale I've never seen before...I've been scratching my head for a historical comparison, but I've yet to find one......"
Neville Chamberlain
Asquith was more ejected than resigned
Jim wrote: It was in reply to your comment "civil servants hang around and get to know what they're talking about."They don't. They stay longer than Politicians, but they still don't stay long enough to have any sense of continuity
So who do you want then? Find me a group of experts who aren't going to have babies or get promoted or retire or decide to do something different with their lives.
It's all very well complaining about everything, but you need to be able to say what should be done differently.
Will wrote: "So who do you want then? Find me a group of experts who aren't going to have babies or get promoted or retire or decide to do something different with their lives.It's all very well complaining about everything, but you need to be able to say what should be done differently. ..."
Simple they could show a little humility and realise that there are people out there who know a lot more about the issue than they do.
Sometimes you get a civil servant who knows this and will bring in people from industry as part of the group (unpaid and any travel expenses paid by the industry if at all). I had the good fortune to work with one such.
But some don't realise this and it can come as a shock to them when they finally meet with industry and are told that the plan they put forward was rejected as illegal under EU law ten years ago, or contradicts Health and Safety regulations or whatever.
The civil service has to realise that frankly, in a lot of areas, it hasn't got the experience, depth of knowledge or understanding of the background and it will need to bring in people on a very temporary basis to remedy this
Jim wrote: "Simple they could show a little humility and realise that there are people out there who know a lot more about the issue than they do."That's a truism which applies to just about everyone all over the globe, no matter what area they work in.
Jim - I used to be a civil servant. It was a job I did for 18 years. I've now jumped over the fence into industry, but I still work with civil servants. It has been a huge part of my career for the past 31+ years. Trust me, there isn't a single civil servant in this country or any other country or international body who doesn't realise that people in specific fields know more than they do.
It works the other way round too. Experts from industry also need to realise when they don't have knowledge or skills that the civil servant has. And in most cases they do. You do occasionally see the odd armchair expert who thinks they can do it better than the expert whether that is the industry expert or the civil servant, but thankfully these are fairly rare.
Whoever they are or wherever they work, they will still have babies and go on maternity leave. They will get older and retire. They will get good at their job and be promoted. They won't always stick around.
We need to get real here.
Will wrote: "I used to be a civil servant. It was a job I did for 18 years. I've now jumped over the fence into industry, but I still work with civil servants. It has been a huge part of my career for the past 31+ years. Trust me, there isn't a single civil servant in this country or any other country or international body who doesn't realise that people in specific fields know more than they do.
It works the other way round too. Experts from industry also need to realise when they don't have knowledge or skills that the civil servant has. And in most cases they do. You do occasionally see the odd armchair expert who thinks they can do it better than the expert whether that is the industry expert or the civil servant, but thankfully these are fairly rare.
Whoever they are or wherever they work, they will still have babies and go on maternity leave. They will get older and retire. They will get good at their job and be promoted. They won't always stick around.
We need to get real here. ..."
we do. I've seen the damage to lives poorly thought out and drafted regulation can do.
To give an example which is relatively trivial but shows what has to be done to get common sense into the debate. In England and Wales any animal that goes into an abattoir, dies. No matter what
In Scotland it's regarded as perfectly safe for an animal that has not yet been killed to be removed from the abattoir and go back to the farm.
So obviously there is no veterinary or epidemiological reason for this.
Now then. If can happen that very occasionally a ewe who isn't supposed to be in lamb is, and lambs in the wagon to the abattoir or in the lairage.
The regulation in England and Wales is definitive. Mother and lamb must be killed.
The civil service refused point blank to look at changing the regulation insisting it was EU law and they could do nothing about it. The fact that Scotland was apparently part of the same EU was irrelevant to them.
We finally had a meeting chaired by a relatively senior EU bod who came across and this was raised. He agreed that the ewe and lamb must be killed.
Actually even slaughterhouse staff and veterinary inspectors have more sense and they are smuggled out but that's by the by.
So I explained to our EU bod that I'd wait for the next case, turn up with a TV camera crew and televise it, explaining this was specifically a EU regulation and the EU insisted on it being done.
A fortnight later the new regulation contained a paragraph which stated that where an animal gives birth in the lairage, it can be taken back to the farm of origin.
Jim wrote: "Will wrote: "I used to be a civil servant. It was a job I did for 18 years. I've now jumped over the fence into industry, but I still work with civil servants. It has been a huge part of my career ..."Well done you - I like it when legitimate protests work!
T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "Well done you - I like it when legitimate protests work! "imaginative blackmail also has its moments.......
Jim - so what are you saying? That a UK civil servant and a EU civil servant should have broken the law on the basis of a single case? If there is an EU regulation about something which has passed into UK law, then that Directive and law have to be respected until and unless they are changed. That is how the law works.And then you say that the regulation changed within the space of a fortnight? And all because of your intervention? Sorry, but that is so far fetched. Regulations are not changed that quickly and not in response to an isolated case.
Sometimes laws and regulations need to be changed. They either become out of date or new information comes along or the body making those regulations changes its mind. But in each case laws are changed through a democratic process and the old law stays in force until the new law is enacted.
In your story, the UK civil servant and the EU bod were 100% correct. Regulations cannot be ignored or changed on the spot. If the UK Government or the EU did that, we would certainly have the unelected and undemocratic system of Government some people are complaining about.
So much for civil disobedience. Guess all those people violating the Runaway Slave Act in the 1850s weren't heroes after all.
I think you forget something Will, in this country the government governs by consent.When the interpretation of a law in one area of the country is the exact opposite of another area of the country, and goes against what people regard as basic humanity and decency there is no consent
The fact that the easy way to get things changed was to threaten them with public exposure shows that they realised this.
In this case the law never changed. The regulation based on the initial law was 'reinterpreted'
After all Scotland was obeying the same law as England and Wales
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Anecdotal evidence is always highly suspect. My colleagues and I have been speaking to employers (large and small) and their view varies from "we think we're alright" to "we don't understand what's going on" to "it's an unmitigated disaster".
We will know more in the coming weeks and months exactly what Brexit means which version of Brexit we will get. If any.
In the meantime we can take some comfort from the fact that Boris won't be PM. At least not yet.