David Davies, not the footy one, is 5th favourite at 16/1 to be what on 1st October 2001 ?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Answers

ante post

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Pregnant?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

it might help

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Some horse race or other?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

not strictly

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Canonised

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

closer

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

what about trying to guess who it was 1st October last year, and they could be the winner this year too, in fact they are 6/4 joint favourite

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Pope?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

re-united with brother Ray in the reformed Kinks?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

He's the Newcastle United fan in channel 4's brand new show. "Big Football brother"?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

It's to be leader of the Conservative party, and this household name is 5th favourite, eeh when I was a lad at least I'd heard of them

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Well well well....if ya'd have said it was politricks then i would've admitted that I know nowt.... :))

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Is anyone voting ? or all we all in the majority of couldn't carelessers that can't be arsed to walk to the polling station?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Haven't made my mind up yet. The most important thing for me is the stability of the economy, then education. What about everyone else?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

whether we keep Dyer

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

I'm not voting....never have an never will.....they're all EXACTLY the same as each other and you can't trust any of them....

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

No offence Gav, but I couldn't disagree more.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

I think you CAN trust them all. You knew exactly what you were getting with Maggie. I think we are pretty sure what we will get again with Blair, and the vast majority of people are petrified at what we'd get with Hague.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Gav I'm ashamed of you! In 1989 students in Tianamen Square lay down in front of tanks when they wre protesting about the fact that they did not have the right to vote in China. In 1994 Black South Africans stood in queues for days on end just to exercise a franchise which they had never had before. Similar queues happened in 1999. throughout history people have fought and died for the right to express an opinion on how they are governed. And you can't be arsed to go to the polling station.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone. (Joni Mitchell if I remember rightly!)

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Anne Widdecombe as Home Secretary, the mind boggles.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

I shall be voting....despite the fact that we currently have the most uninspiring crop of polititians I have ever known (all parties).(:o|

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

Who was it said that a nation gets the politicians it deserves?

However in defence of Gav, Don't vote, it only encourages them. and

I' wouldn't want to vote for anyone who would want my vote!

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

Isn't this apathy partly to do with the system we run in Britain ? There aren't that many countries in the world still using First past the Post.

The minute bit of knowledge I have of it makes Proportional Representation look a much fairer system, but I may not know enough about it to see the drawbacks. It surely can't be worse than what we've got at the moment.

I'd have more time for our current system if there was a box on the ballot paper that would allow me to register the fact that I was abstaining.

If the number of abstainers was much greater than the total number of votes cast for particular candidates, you never know, there may be somebody with the integrity to wonder why this was so and what could be done to make the system more acceptible.

At the moment, all we can do is refuse to vote or spoil the ballot paper. Either way, it only ends up being commented on and doesn't do anything to prompt somebody to try to sort out the faults in the system.

And voting should be made compulsory, IMO. That way, rather than 'protest' by not turning out, a disgruntled voter could protest more noticeably by spoiling the paper. At least it might be recorded as a specific figure, rather than the 'there was an x percent turnout in today's poll', although looked at in cold blood, what difference does it make how it's recorded ?

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

Just tidying up and came across the following line in the leaflet through the door from one of our candidates .... "the use of plebiscites in matters of great national importance to bring truth back to democracy and to banish party oligarchy", followed by " an immediate defence against the climate of moral degeneracy afflicting our young people in the culture of grugs and anarchy"

Hey I'm with him all the way on this

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

Don't they have proportional representation in Italy? now there's a political system which doesn't even try to pretend that it's not bent....

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

The spoilt paper is still the only way for the digruntled voter to go if they have a conscience.

If half the ballot papers were returned with:
a) Lickspittle of a smarmy c*nt
b) Lapdog to a bald, smarmy c*nt
c) Yes-man of a ginger c*nt

Then there is some chance of an "All the candidates are c*nts" box being added.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

We have John Tyndall standing in our constituency (ex NF leader now the leader of the BNP)

Now there's a reason to vote if I ever saw one. Keep that man out of office.

As for not voting, I'm with Softie at least turn up and register your disgust at thre lack of options by spoiling your ballot, they do announce how many spoilt ballots there were when they announce the result. If it were compulsory to vote the amount of spoiled ballots would be a better indication of the lack of faith in the political system than we currently have.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

I voted in sunny Loughborough once, choice between Stephen Dorrel and some scruffy union official. Now having Tyndall would have brightened the debate up a bit.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

What is 'first past the post'? For some reason I thought England used PR. But then I've never heard much about the elections system there as I have about Ireland's system.

Are there spaces for write-in candidates on your ballots? Another fine way to register disgust. :-) There probably isn't a cartoon character or celeb that hasn't made the write-in portion of US ballots.

I do agree with those who feel voting should be mandatory. IMO, if you don't vote you have no right to complain.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

First past the post means if you had party A getting 12000 votes, party B getting 10000 votes and C getting 8000 votes then A wins despite gettign only 33% of the votes.

Across the country this usually means party C (always Lib Dems) may get around a sixth of the votes but gets around 6% of the seats. No one party in the UK has had 50% of the vote since just after the war (? ). Maggie's landslide allowing her to be an evil dictator was on 42% of the vote, Blair's landslide allowing him to be a smarmy dictator was on 44%.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2001

If I choose to stay off their registers thats my prerogative, trying to tell me i've no right to complain, that i've no conscience or that people have died for my right to vote is just sanctimonious bullshit...

I pay more than my fair share of taxes so i've every right to complain...

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2001

Proportional Representation has been used for years in the Republic, but also increasingly in the North to stop the Unionist parties squeezing out the nationalist vote (Ian Paisley was my MP for 3 years). Given a form is now used for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly surely Westminster is only a matter of time.

In Holland, with 3 big parties, and a multitude of smaller ones, a party can get representatives elected with quite a small share of the vote. Thus in the 95 election a coalition of disgruntled pensioners formed a party, campaigned effectively, got 5 seats in parliament. Only they kept falling out with each other and, erm, dying, and consequently lost all seats at the following election.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2001

On that nore, I think we should wait until all the old people have died before we join the euro

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2001

Gav

I take your point. In a way it doesn't really matter how you protest - abstain or spoil your ballot - you're not in any position to do much about it either way.

And I wouldn't even agree with those who reckon if you don't vote, you have no right to whinge about the outcome. Your point about forking out in taxes giving you the right to complain is a valid one IMO.

At the same time though, there are currently 26 countries using PR against 6 still using FPTP, and 6 using some sort of mixed system, (no details about the rest of the world) so I think having one where PR appears not to do the business isn't too bad, I'd say.

As well, I'd have thought it would be easier to hide the corruption in a FPTP system, and maybe the Italian system is really more open, making it easier to expose the corruption. We have to wait years sometimes, for the corruption to surface.

That's just a gut feeling I have, I don't have any evidence to justify it.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2001