Yeah, but now all the idiot teenagers who voted or wanted a "yes" vote are going to spend at least the next decade making a stink about it in universities.
Yeah, but now all the idiot teenagers who voted or wanted a "yes" vote are going to spend at least the next decade making a stink about it in universities.
People who wanted a stink have been making it for decades, while those in universities who want to will always find something to whine about. By allowing a free vote this is now peacefully resolved for a few years at least, unlike in Catalonia or Tibet etc
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
They keep on having referenda in Quebec and it never resolves anything. In fact, they get closer to passing each time they're held.
Hope is the denial of reality
Garbage. It's nearly two decades since the last one was lost and the separationists have gone backwards since then if anything. There's no hint of any referendum happening any time soon.
Further the first referendum was famously messed up by the Yes side shooting themselves in the foot while it was actions after then which led to the second much more competently managed one which closed the issue for now.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...-vote-Yes.html Can anyone spot the massive flaws in this article?
Hope is the denial of reality
Final point should have been much slower not faster growth in Dundee etc as the graph shows but other than that no. The information correlates with the expectations from the polling too.
Read the title. Then see which part of the article (if any) supports the contention made in the title.
Hope is the denial of reality
Young: Demographics
Poor: Mixed but disposable income and growth
Unemployed: Unemployment, Employment and Workless households.
The young part has evidence, the others do not. The aggregate results tell us that people in poor counties and counties with high unemployment voted for secession. Those results cannot tell that it was actually the poor and the unemployed who were voting for secession. Let's say there's a county with 30% unemployment (abnormally high) where 70% voted for secession (abnormally high). That could mean that all the unemployed voted for secession, along with about half the employed. It could mean that 70% of the employed and 70% of the unemployed voted for secession. It could mean that none of the unemployed voted for secession and 100% of the employed voted for secession. Based on aggregate data, we have absolutely no way of knowing which of those stories is correct. You'd need individual-level data (i.e. polls) for that.
Hope is the denial of reality
The opinion poll evidence beforehand all showed that Yes voters were poorer and younger and more unemployed. The logical hypothesis for why is that the poorer and more disenfranchised have less to lose by going Yes while the older are more risk-averse and concerned about pensions etc. The results afterwards show that the Yes regions were poorer and younger and more unemployed. Now correlation != causation but it is evidence.
It is possible of course that the opinion polls were wrong in saying that the poorer etc were more Yes and that the regions that are poorer etc being more Yes is pure coincidence ... but its unlikely. Everything in that link confirms the vast bulk of polling data beforehand.
A) The opinion polls were wrong quite substantially.
B) More importantly, the author doesn't reach her conclusions on the basis of those polls. In fact, they're not mentioned at all. All we have is aggregate data about poor counties voting for secession. There's nothing in the article that can be deemed evidence for poor/unemployed individuals voting for secession. I'm not saying it's not true (it probably is), but the article's conclusions do not follow from the evidence presented in it.
Hope is the denial of reality
A) No they weren't.
The opinion polls were all firmly on the No side, almost all pollsters finished within the margin of error of the final result and furthermore almost all the difference is according to YouGov attributable to late swing. YouGov like almost every pollster had its final poll split 48/52 but they published a quasi-exit poll that showed resurveying the same people after they'd voted got a result of 46/54. Final actual result 45/55.
B) Newspaper reports aren't multipage journals and shouldn't be taken in isolation.
The articles conclusions DO follow from the evidence presented, not conclusively but then its not meant to be a scientific and conclusive report. Adding in the polling data reinforces the conclusions.
I don't see a new referendum happening unless Westminster reneges on the promises made during the campaign.
Congratulations America
No, there's absolutely no evidence presented at the individual-level at all. It is fallacious to make any conclusions about individuals on the basis of aggregate-level data. This is equivalent to an old finding that the KKK got more votes in districts with more black people. Do you think that's evidence for black people voting KKK? There are a million possible mechanisms that would lead to different individual-level and aggregate-level results in the Scotland example. E.G. Rich people in poor districts might think that London is incapable of solving the poverty problem and supporting secession for that reason. The counties with high unemployment might have poor services, and the middle class might think it would be better off deciding the funding formula for itself. Any of these stories have as much evidence as the one presented by the Telegraph (on the basis of the evidence presented in that story).
Chances are this referendum wouldn't be necessary if Blair didn't create a Scottish parliament. A paradox of devolution is that it encourages people to ask for even more devolution.
Hope is the denial of reality
No you are being ridiculous in taking this out of any and all context and into isolation. There is a plethora of polling research that shows these demographics were expected to vote Yes, the regions expecting to be higher Yes as a result were predicted before the vote, those regions (as predicted) were higher Yes votes.
To take an article confirming the predictions out of all context may make you feel smug but its not sensible. This may not meet the standards required for a PoliSci journal, but its not research for a PoliSci journal. Its a newspaper, this is news, it is right as you admit.
Indeed as was predicted at the time, but now it has happened it will take a shock to the system to have a second referendum (as happened with Quebec). Hazir is 100% right on this matter.Chances are this referendum wouldn't be necessary if Blair didn't create a Scottish parliament. A paradox of devolution is that it encourages people to ask for even more devolution.
The general election next year is going to be pretty interesting. We have:
1) The Tories, who are so reviled by some sections of the electorate, that the sole tactic of the Yes campaign was simple to say the word 'Tory' as often as possible and it nearly worked but who are also going to be hemorrhaging votes from their core 'vile imbecile' demographic to UKIP. Apparently it is not possible to have a center right party in this country without getting a side order of psychopathic weasels.
2) Labour, who have an utter non-entity for a leader and as far as I can tell no discernible policies. Will the Tories be off-putting this time around enough to cause enough people sigh and vote for Ed Something?
3) The Lib Dems, who are unpopular for no reason and will be wiped out no matter what they say or do. But still end up in a coalition.
Basically, I see all three main parties as having crippling weaknesses. So it's sort of a contest of who can suck the least. I also predict gains for smaller parties like the Greens and DIPSHIT. So, yeah. Fun times; the three main parties can't get their act together so we're going to see the rise of the kind of people who I wouldn't want to see within 8 miles of power. If we end up with a fucking Conservative/DIPSHIT coalition...
I will have literally no say in any of this because of our stupid ass FPTP electoral system.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Eh, your FPTP system is why the crazy parties will never be in government even if they have the support of a third of the electorate.
Hope is the denial of reality
I think the scenario you outlined is how revolutions happen.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Revolutions don't happen in rich democracies.
Hope is the denial of reality
What about crazy parties getting 1/3 or more of votes?
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Incidentally, you're wrong. The polls taken in the last week expected a ~4% victory for continued union.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/scottis...nce-referendum
Do you have any examples in mind? The only example I could think of is Weimar Germany, and that country had a very brief tradition of democracy.
Hope is the denial of reality
That was the point I was making.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
I.E. By having FPTP, you're more or less ensuring that crazies will never be a key coalition partner in a government. Can't say the same about countries with PR.
Hope is the denial of reality
You are aware of the fact that the Brits despite their FPTP system have a coalition government? One would have to be blind to ignore the fact that the UK is going through a series of severe political and constitutional shocks. The referendum in Scotland wasn't the cause of this, it was a mere symptom. As a symptom it tells us that the political order of the UK is at risk. The single fact that Scotland didn't break the Union doesn't mean the risk isn't real and present.
Congratulations America
How is a 4% lead make my comment of a 48 52 split wrong? Last I checked 48 52 is bang on a 4% lead.
Also how does that make it outside of margin of error (which is 3% either way). 45 Yes is within 3% of 48%.
Plus you disregarded the late swing YouGov detected that got them almost bang on.
Lib Dems are your definition of crazies?
Currently the combined fruitbat, loons and utter crazy parties combined have just a single MP.
If we're at the point where a significant proportion of the electorate *want* to elect a crazy party, we're fucked anyway. Denying them a voice through a corrupt system isn't going to help, it's just going to make unrest more likely.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
The system isn't corrupt just because losers don't win. We had a referendum on changing the voting system to cater to losers and surprise, surprise it lost by 2 votes to 1. Move on.
I'd the crazies want power they can win it democratically by beating their opponents not just taking part.
This is the first British coalition government in how long? And the Lib Dems got a substantial share of the vote; they're a major British party and have been for a long time.
And yet there's pretty good evidence that Scottish desires for independence were caused by the creation of a Scottish Parliament, which allowed the previously fringe SNP to continuously make a case for independence.
FPTP is no more corrupt than PR. Each has advantages and disadvantages when it comes to the democratic process. In PR, small parties have disproportionate influence over legislation, for instance. Coalition decisions are also made behind closed doors, which isn't exactly a triumph for democracy.
You know better than to claim that a single poll can be used to represent reality. The average of the credibly polls was off by 7%. That's pretty damn substantial in a close election. And the margin of error decreases when you average out the polls. They should have been within a 1% or so of reality.
Hope is the denial of reality
No, the LibDems are still pretty mainstream. The fact that they are in the coalition this time is still within the margins of things as usual. There is no reason to exclude the possibility that next time a less moderate party will be in the king makers' position.
Congratulations America
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