silverfox

The Beano - less spelling mistakes without losing the fantasy element

Posted by: StraferJack Yesterday, 09:00AM "TT3 is a bit like silverfox No matter which side of a debate they reside on you hope against hope it?s not the same side as you" ------------------------------------------- I agree with StraferJack (give me a shout SJ when you need help)

No, not for real men.

"passport photo's" is actually correct, apostrophe-wise, as it is an abbreviation of "passport photographs" -------------------- SimonM 'Fraid not SimonM. If it were correct you'd write photo (singular) as photo'. So, passport photo's is not only incorrect as the plural but meaningless. (Edited as I confused myself)

How do you feel about palindromes Bob?

Just keeping you on your tippee toes Huguenot. I realise you're tired and emotional given the recent fiasco. It was sad to see you begging on the morning of the election with that new thread babbling on about saving the nation. Very jingoistic of you if I may say so.

Nonsense. Conspiracy theory at it's most exalted. You're saying people are mere behavioral animals with no minds of their own but you, the enlightened one, can see through all the subterfuge. You'll be telling us next you've seen Osama bin Laden chatting with Elvis

AV is so yesterday darling

Where can I buy a Gollywog in ED?

I'm confused now. What happens if I put Yes for my first preference and No for my second preference?

Huguenot said: "...That's all AV does - allows you to do a run-off without returning to the polls in cases where no candidate gets a clear majority..." Good, now you're starting to grasp what I've been saying. If people did return to the polls they would be voting for a second time - having more than one vote. That's why I don't agree that preferences are not, in reality, extra votes

My, what a lot of assumptions you make about me. Look Huguenot, to show how fair minded I am, I've just spent about half-an-hour explaining your and Loz's pro-AV arguments to my dotty Aunt Doris. She thought it was a great idea ... and then added "and don't forget the toast"

Not necessarily mockney. AV can still win if there's a low turn out and the pro-FPTP bunch can't be bothered to vote. Why do you think that the Referendum was planned for this week? Hidden away in between Bank Holidays, Royal Weddings and Osama bin Laden executions to distract the pro-FPTP crowd. Crafy blighter that Cleggy chap. Wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him let alone have him running the country.

Bob, I've just chased a pro-AV squirrel off my pear tree. It made it's preferences clear by half-munching several of them but of course that's only one dining session

Mr Ben and Moos. Have you noticed how the AV camp have ignored your question why only three countries use AV to elect their governments? The silence is deafening

Imagine living in the following world with these headlines from the AV Chronicle: Fat kid beats Usain Bolt in 100 metres final after AV redistributes seconds to make it fairer Or West Ham win Premiership title after AV redistributes points to make it fairer

No Huguenot, you're wrong yet again. The majority have been ripped off. Look at the figures again. By contriving to allow Party C to win the MAJORITY of people, ie the 4,100 and 3,000 who voted for A and B with their first choice (7,100 out of 10,000) have ended up with what they didn't want in the first place - Wagon Wheels We're back to Loz's ice cream example where more people ended up with an ice cream they didn't want after AV than would have been the case if they stayed in bed and hadn't voted in the first place

In the Drawing Room Loz has stated: "...AV is easy to understand - the only people who could possibly find AV complicated are those that can't count to ten." Well here's a great example from westdulwich in the Drawing Room: "If, for sake of argument, 10,000 people vote as follows: 4,100 vote Party A as their first preference, with 800 voting Party B and 3,300 voting Party C as their second preference 3,000 vote Party B as their first preference, with 1,500 voting Party A and 1,500 voting Party C as their second preference 2,900 vote Party C as their first preference, with 800 voting Party A and 2,100 voting Party B as their second preference Have I understood this correctly? Party A has the most first preference votes Party C is the party that most would be prefer, if their first choice was eliminated. Under FPTP, Party A is the winner, with 41% of votes cast. Under AV, Party B is the winner, with 51% of votes cast (after Party C is eliminated and its votes distributed)." (In fairness Loz has qualified the bit about first choices being eliminated) As simple as counting 1 to 10 eh? Let's ignore all the mumbo jumbo and look at what's really happened here. Let's call Party A Green & Black's chocolate, Party B Mars Bar and Party C Wagon Wheel. Oooh, shock horror, we've all ended up with Wagon Wheels but it's the fairest result if we but realised it - we've been empowered by our votes, our votes have really counted etc etc "Err Hello...?" as my children would say if I tried to fobb them off with Wagon Wheels Even small children realise when they've been ripped off

Having lost the debate in the Drawing Room the pro-AV camp desperately tries to spread the message here. You can run but you can't hide. Another great Leader in The Times today: No Alternative AV is irrelevant to the need to improve the voting system "...First-past-the-post, like any voting system, is open to objection. Some regard it as a weakness that it can return fewer minority party MPs than their national share of the vote might suggest was fair. And it often has. Yet this exact flaw is one of the things that helps to produce the current system?s greatest strengths ? its long history of producing clear election results that reflect broad public opinion. It is hard to think of a single election in the modern era where, of the two contenders, the party that is acknowledged as the less fit to govern has nonetheless been victorious. This includes the last one, where voters were keen to remove Labour and, in particular its Prime Minister, but were nervous about handing power to the Conservatives, despite liking David Cameron and feeling that he should probably take over in 10 Downing Street. The mathematical outcome was almost magically perfect for achieving this objective. This repeated success in installing the prime minister that people want is a huge practical advantage to set against the theoretical advantages that are suggested for the alternative vote. It is telling that the Yes to AV campaign emphasise the impact that they believe (wrongly) a new system might make on the conduct of individual MPs. This allows them to duck the question of the impact it might make on the election of governments. And while we continue to choose prime ministers by counting up the number of MPs supporting them in the House of Commons, it is this impact that is critical. Advocates of AV suggest, without grounds, that their new system will make individual MPs more accountable, and therefore more diligent. It might, however, have the opposite effect on governments. The directness of the current system, its ability to capture the national mood, would be lost, without obvious benefit. There are many things that are wrong with the British Constitution. The standard of MPs is poor. Legislative scrutiny is too weak because there is not enough expertise in Parliament. The executive has dominion over the legislature, which leads to hasty and badly drafted laws. The House of Lords is still in a drama that began in 1911, with no end in sight. Turnout at general elections is too low. Local government has been emptied of power and Whitehall still tries to run things that are way beyond its competence. None of these problems is a function of an electoral system. There is no solution to any of them even under discussion, let alone on offer. Instead of a serious discussion about why British politics isn?t working properly, we are being forced to sit through an irrelevant, tedious and hyperbolic argument about a small and unnecessary change to the electoral system. This is entirely about the internal politics of the coalition and not at all about the needs of the nation. The electoral system is not perfect. No system can be. But it is not broken, either. Other aspects of the British Constitution are broken and nobody has a proposal to fix them. AV is not only the wrong answer, it?s the wrong question. But, given that it is the question that we have been asked, the answer has to be No. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article3005672.ece (Subscription required to read full article)

FPTP is a simple voting system Loz. You put an x next to the candidate you would like to win. The person with the most votes wins. (Simple, that took 20 words to explain) You don't need expensive leaflets coming through the door taking four pages to explain how to vote. You don't need silly graphics with bar charts and dogs wearing hats and frock coats to explain it. You don't need adverts with people shouting through loud hailers to try to explain it. You don't need to put down several choices because you're not sure who to vote for. You don't need to give a failed candidate extra votes to help them using a complicated form of pass the parcel. You don't need to pretend to people that it will somehow empower them, make their votes count, when in fact any change will be negligible And the biggest self-delusion of all is to tell people that all this nonsense is good for them if they but realised it - yes folks you really wanted this useless miserable compromise of a candidate to represent you because you put them down as your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th choice.

True, there is nothing wrong with compromise. Unfortunately, as we have seen from the examples given on this thread in support of AV, AV is a dumbing down, a dilution, the elevation of the average candidate on a second or third best basis - and all this under the misguided notion that it's good for us, it's fair. It's a fallacy.

Loz said: "...What do we have to lose by voting Yes, then?..." We lose a simple, straightforward system that everybody understands - one person one vote. AV is not the correct choice to replace this tried and tested system. Even the architect of the vote, Mr Clegg, acknowledges it's a miserable little compromise. Even he didn't want it, he wanted PR. By all means start the process of discussion to replace FPTP with a different system such as PR but don't, out of desperation, vote for an ill-thought out stop-gap that'll do little if anything to improve democracy or empower voters.

Love it. Brain the size of a cat? Vote AV

Fair point Burbage

Once again Loz you fail to grasp the obvious even in your own examples. In your example "The shop has Mars Bars and Bounties." So translating that to an AV election: Child A cannot make preferences 1 and 2 for KitKat and Twix because those candidates aren't standing - they don't exist, you cannot vote for nothing. So Child A has to vote for Mars Bar. Child B can vote for Bounty, he's standing, but can't have a second preference for Twix because he isn't standing, doesn't exist, but can have a second preference of Mars Bar. The reason for labouring this point is it goes to the crux of the fallacy of AV. For each candidate that is standing and you make a preference for, the person has, in reality, whether they're too stupid to realise it or not, made multiple votes. Each preference is counted therefore each is a separate vote. This is quite unlike your examples of wish lists where the analagous candy bars aren't even on the ballot paper. But then, I'm afraid, I don't expect you to understand this any more than you understood the difference between a majority and a number of fragmented minorities. But I won't give up on you Loz - I see the potential