On a very high turnout, the result in last week's Fun Online Poll was as follows:
Which is the least insane policy on 'illegal immigrants' in the UK?
Round them all up and deport them - 67%
Turn a blind eye, but make sure as few new ones come in as possible - 20%
Offer them all an amnesty and allow them to stay here - 14%
Hmm.
I think we can rule out the last option, but the first (and most popular) one strikes me as a bit hare brained. How do we define 'illegal immigrant'? How do we identify them? Does anybody have any idea how many there are? If we left the EU (a key part of my manifesto), would a lot of foreign workers suddenly change status from 'legal' to 'illegal'?
Sure, if foreigners commit a serious crime (including Islamism) and are arrested, by all means boot them out without any back chat (even if they are 'legal'), but what about those who have never claimed benefits, worked hard and supported themselves somehow, never committed a crime, maybe even got married and had children who are at school? How would you identify them and if so would it be politically desirable or even do-able to kick them all out?
So my preferred option, by default, would be the second one, but I'm clearly outvoted on this.
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The No2AV continue to peddle their lies*, and would appear to be gaining the upper hand.
It strikes me that the Tories are going out of their way to convince people that the BNP would somehow sneak in by the back door if we had AV; that AV would unduly favour the Lib Dems, and that the Electoral Reform Society are entirely unprincipled.
The ERS thing is just a smear. And if you think about it, there's no reason to assume that AV will give the Lib Dems an unfair advantage, it might merely cancel out the unfair disadvantage which FPTP gives them and the idea that the BNP would gain influence is laughable.
What's interesting is what the Tories aren't saying, and which is blindly obvious if you think about it, which is that it would be incredibly embarrassing for them when a large chunk (ten, twenty per cent? More?) of those they consider natural Tory voters vote "UKIP 1, Tory 2" under an AV election. It's unlikely that this would be enough to change the final result in many constituencies in the next General Election or two, but all the same, it would show how narrow their true support is.
The chances are, the Tories would then be forced to become more EU-sceptic, maybe even hold and in-out referendum, but that is exactly what they don't want to do!
So that's this week's Fun Online Poll, which party are the Tories really scared of?
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
* For example, they keep saying that "Only three other countries use AV", for sure, that's because most countries have moved on a bit and use some other more proportional voting system, be that STV, AV-plus, full PR, multi-member constituencies, whatever.
It's 'absolutely' again
20 minutes ago
13 comments:
What's interesting is what the Tories aren't saying, and which is blindly obvious if you think about it, which is that it would be incredibly embarrassing for them when a large chunk (ten, twenty per cent? More?) of those they consider natural Tory voters vote "UKIP 1, Tory 2" under an AV election. It's unlikely that this would be enough to change the final result in many constituencies in the next General Election or two, but all the same, it would show how narrow their true support is.
If it went 20% UKIP/Con, you'd see a lot of money start to come into UKIPs coffers and membership rise because lots of Eurosceptics would quit the Conservatives, seeing it as possible that they could get what they wanted elsewhere (rather than being able to vaguely lean on Spam).
The thing with non-FPTP systems is that parties can grow, and do so relatively quickly, whether that's the FN, Forza Italia or the One Nation Party.
And just to counter all the "AV leads to Kristallnacht" scaremongering, the fact is that the FN have grown recently because the new leader (Marine Le Pen) has made the party more moderate. The presidential election where her father went through to the final vote saw the FN defeated massively by Chirac.
re fun poll.
I'm with you No.2. I think you may have compromised your poll by saying we should 'turn a blind eye'. What you are really doing (assuming that we bring in a sensible policy on benefits) is implementing a bit of 'laissez faire', in that if you get out of these - generally self evidently enterprising - peoples way they will just get on with creating wealth.
I suspect AV would hurt the Lib Dems in the long run more than Labour and the Tories as the votes of the Simon Hughes types would leach to the Greens and the David Laws types to the all new more centrist Tories.
How do you define illegal immigrant? how do you define murderer? Its all so ambiguous and relative isn't it? Hey man roll another one and chill out.
I'm disappointed in you Mark, you will be writing for the Guardian next, and discontinuing washing.
I take issue with your assertion that full PR and AV-plus etc represent a society that has "moved on".
Greece use a "complex reinforced proportional representation electoral system"(wiki)for example yet their country is the most corrupt in the EU, how do the pro AV crowd explain that away?
FPTP is a good system, one that would be enhanced if the electorate could excerise their right to choose "none of the above", this would encourage politicians to listen and prevent the big three from gaining power by default.
In a free market goods and services improve because the consumer is able to vote with his feet, it's about time we introduced this into the realm of political "services" too.
JT, that is my thinking.
L, call it laisser faire, call it turn a blind eye.
R, yes, in the long run, I don't think AV would particularly help Lib Dems, but it is of little concern to me whether it would or wouldn't.
G: "how do you define murderer?" There's a legal definition of that which is quite satisfactory for these purposes.
"How do you define illegal immigrant?" There are so many rules, some of which conflict, that it is hard to say.
What about an ANZ student who does a bit of bar work in the evenings, despite having no work permit, or a Canadian who marries a British Citizen who is younger than 21? I'm perfectly relaxed about those two.
Conversely, some Somali drug dealer or AQ sympathizer is definitely on wrong side of my (rather subjective) line.
CD, so, Greece is corrupt? If they had FPTP, it'd still be corrupt. Some countries have a one-party system and are corrupt. I fail to see the relevance.
And we discussed "none of the above" before. If marginal seats failed to return an MP at all, then we'd just have the country run by 100 safe Tory MPs and 100 safe Labour MPs. How is that an improvement on anything at all?
CD, so, Greece is corrupt? If they had FPTP, it'd still be corrupt. Some countries have a one-party system and are corrupt. I fail to see the relevance.
I would have thought the relevence was obvious, some pro-AV supporters believe it's a political panacea, yet as you openly admit corruption and poor governance can occur under any electoral system. So why the push for electoral change? The reality (for me) is that I'm going to put the number 1 next to UKIP instead of a cross, it doesn't change anything.
And we discussed "none of the above" before. If marginal seats failed to return an MP at all, then we'd just have the country run by 100 safe Tory MPs and 100 safe Labour MPs. How is that an improvement on anything at all?
It wouldn't happen, if only 200 out of 650 seats were filled they'd have to dissolve parliament and get back to us with better manifestos. They'll never improve their product if they continue to deny the public the right to turn down their offers, this is an iron law in economics and it applies equally to the political realm too.
In fact it's the only change that have the effect that AVers claim AV will have; lower corruption, improve competition in "safe" seats, get MPs working harder etc etc. But I guess it's a bit too radical at present.
CD: "It wouldn't happen, if only 200 out of 650 seats were filled they'd have to dissolve parliament and get back to us with better manifestos."
Maybe you ought to explain fully how your "NOTA" system would work so I can have a think.
I never made any claim for AV other than it would help smaller parties, it's my English sense of fair play.
MW - blind eye/laissezfaire. Words change the thing. And 'blind eye' does not mean the same as 'laissez faire'.
L, I did actually mean 'turn a blind eye' and not 'laisser faire'. My kids do plenty of things for which technically I should tell them off, but I often don't bother, i remind them what the rules are and hope for the best. This is "blind eye" rather than "laisser faire".
G, as to individual cases, you and I might well come to the same conclusion on who's in and who's out, but 'the law' doesn't work like that, it has to be a bit more objective.
Plus I'm sure there are plenty of non-white Canadians etc who have some sort of UK roots, what reason to you have to assume that they are worse people than white descendants of people who emigrated from the UK decades or centuries ag?
"Well obviously white Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders are welcome, they are not immigrants they are our own people".
Would that also extend to Anglo-Indians - yes I know that they aren't exactly ahem "pure white" but quite a lot are what you might describe as "caffè latte" ...
G, I'm half foreign, my wife's foreign so our kids are three-quarters foreign. I can hardly propose a policy of chucking out people who are partly non-British or I'm f-ed, aren't I?
I don't worry about 'race' in the slightest, I just care about western, democratic values, proper use of English, being good losers at cricket, nuns cycling across the park without being mugged or raped by hoodies, using imperial weights and measures, sticking up for the underdog, smoking in pubs, not being blown up on the train and all that.
Just for the record, my dad's dad was Irish american. My Maternal grandfather was Welsh. My maternal grandmother was part French (Hugenot?). My paternal grandmother was London East End and I reckon had Jewsih blood somewhere.
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