Voter ID

[drfchound]

Yep Smogg is right it's the postal votes that are the problem

More than 800 uncounted postal votes from the North Lincolnshire local election last week have been discovered in an 'unacceptable' oversight.

After it was declared on Friday, May 5 that Conservatives Janet Lee and Carol Ross had won both seats in the Broughton and Scawby ward, 864 postal votes were found which had not been counted.
Since the law does not allow votes to be counted once the result has been declared, the situation has now been referred to the Electoral Commission.

That is shocking Raven.
Someone got it horribly wrong there.

[wilts rover]

Yep Smogg is right it's the postal votes that are the problem

More than 800 uncounted postal votes from the North Lincolnshire local election last week have been discovered in an 'unacceptable' oversight.

After it was declared on Friday, May 5 that Conservatives Janet Lee and Carol Ross had won both seats in the Broughton and Scawby ward, 864 postal votes were found which had not been counted.
Since the law does not allow votes to be counted once the result has been declared, the situation has now been referred to the Electoral Commission.

That is shocking Raven.
Someone got it horribly wrong there.

The Electoral Commission should really declare the result in Broughton null and void and declare a re-run.

[Branton Red]

Billy

Sorry but accusing me of ignoring context here is deeply ironical.

If Rees-Mogg (or any other Cabinet minister) had resigned over this issue I would firstly have drowned them in an ocean of plauditory.

I would secondly have questioned why on Earth they were risking their career and their ability to influence over this issue.

If all Cabinet members resigned over every law/decision they disagreed with we'd very quickly need to devise another method of Government.

Your clip of Rees-Mogg is him defending Government policy as a member of the Government presumably whilst acting as Leader of the House when he is liable to be asked such constitutional questions. It's called taking collective responsibility.

What would you expect him to have said? Even if he disagreed (and we can't read his mind) on the issue at the time (but not enough to resign over it)?

Your criticism shows an inability to consider constitutional context.

Now he is out of Government he has publicly expressed disagreement with the policy. I am at perfect liberty to express agreement with him on this - which you also do! - and to praise him for doing so.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Branton.

He's explicitly said that it was a law brought in in order to improve the Tories' electoral prospects.

If we take him at his word now, he claims to have believed all along that this was dangerous meddling in a system that was never broken.

But you think he was right not to resign from Cabinet over a clear and admitted attempt to undermine the electoral system.

What DO you think would be a principled resigning matter then?

[Branton Red]

Billy

Do you think Labour Cabinet ministers should have resigned when Tony Blair's Government used it's majority to shift constituency boundaries in their electoral favour?

Do you think members of the shadow cabinet should resign over Keir Starmer wanting to give the vote to foreign nationals because they are more likely to vote Labour?

Do you think members of the shadow cabinet should resign over Keir Starmer wanting to give the vote to 16 and 17 year olds because they are more likely to vote Labour?

If your answer is No to these questions but you believe Tory Ministers should have resigned over the voter ID issue doesn't that highlight that you're putting personal partisanship over principles?

Personally I believe all the above 4 examples of gerrymandering are fundamentally wrong. I couldn't/wouldn't support any of them.

But I wouldn't expect Labour or Tory Ministers to resign over them on principle. If that were their principles frankly they're in the wrong parties in the first place given the electoral system we have.

[scawsby steve]

Branton.

Have you watched that video I posted, where Rees-Mogg stood up in Parliament eloquently explaining why Voter ID was necessary, and berating "socialists who don't have confidence in the voters" for arguing against it.

All of which says to me that, correct as he might be in saying what he says now, he doesn't deserve plaudits for it. He thought he was supporting a law that was going to help his side. Now he's flipped 180 degrees.

Ignoring that context isn't a sign of intellectual maturity.

It seems that it is ok for Starmer to change his mind as often as he wants but not for Mogg to do so.
Now is that double standards.
That last sentence by Branton two posts ago appears to be very insightful.

It now seems to me to be OK to attack Starmer for changing his mind but not Rees-Mogg. Now that is double standards.

Massive difference between Starmer and Rees-Mogg though, Wilts. Starmer is very likely to be the next Prime Minister. The amount of times he's changed his mind on serious issues recently is deeply worrying.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Billy

Do you think Labour Cabinet ministers should have resigned when Tony Blair's Government used it's majority to shift constituency boundaries in their electoral favour?

Do you think members of the shadow cabinet should resign over Keir Starmer wanting to give the vote to foreign nationals because they are more likely to vote Labour?

Do you think members of the shadow cabinet should resign over Keir Starmer wanting to give the vote to 16 and 17 year olds because they are more likely to vote Labour?

If your answer is No to these questions but you believe Tory Ministers should have resigned over the voter ID issue doesn't that highlight that you're putting personal partisanship over principles?

Personally I believe all the above 4 examples of gerrymandering are fundamentally wrong. I couldn't/wouldn't support any of them.

But I wouldn't expect Labour or Tory Ministers to resign over them on principle. If that were their principles frankly they're in the wrong parties in the first place given the electoral system we have.

Branton

Where on earth to start with that?

Let's start with the claim about Blair's government re-drawing boundaries to benefit itself and "forcing through" the legislation in Parliament. God alone knows how you thought that one up but:

1) There are regular "Periodic Reviews" of electoral boundaries, as required by the 1986  Parliamentary Constituencies Act.
2) The reviews lead to proposals by the entirely independent Boundary Commission on how Parliamentary consituency boundaries should be de-drawn to take account of demographic changes.
3) The Act legally requires a review to be held every 8-12 years.
4) The last review before Blair took office was  1995. Therefore there legally had to be one no later than 2007. There was, it was the only one under Blair's Government. Its recommendations were voted through Parliament unchanged and without controversy.
5) The general consensus was that the effect of these changes would mean the Tories would make a net gain of twelve seats from Labour.

As regards the other proposals from Labour on voting, there are perfectly reasonable grounds for extending the franchise to include people who have been settled, working and paying tax here for many year (we already allow non-UK nationals from Commonwealth countries who are settled in the UK to vote in GEs), and to include 16-18 year olds (several countries already do this; many more are debating it and it is firmly supported by the Electoral Reform Society). These measures may or may not assist either party, but that's secondary. The key thing is that they should be considered on their merits. If you have any evidence that they are being proposed BECAUSE they would benefit Labour, please present it.

Of course, there's an argument that the Voter ID issue should also be considered on its merits as a means of protecting the integrity of voting, and not seen as a cynical move for party advantage. But Rees-Mogg has blown that argument out of the water by admitting that the requirements were unnecessary and brought in specifically to give the Tories an electoral advantage.

I really don't see how you draw comparisons like this. Still, you got a Like from Hound, so that's nice.

[drfchound]

bst, I often click a like on a post which puts you right.

But …… conversely I have clicked on your posts when I like the content in them, so that’s nice too.