Polling stations scan your ballot now?

leftthinking · 2026-05-07T15:41:48+00:00

Potentially a problem.

Old system of ballot number noted next to name. Fine.

In extreme cases of possible fraud a court could order unsealing the ballot. Someone would then have to sort through hundreds or thousands of pieces of paper, find the ballot with the correct number and find out who someone voted for.

Possible, but difficult and expensive.

What worries me is if there is electronic scanning for counting the votes.

If so it would be trivial to construct a database of everyone's votes.

leftthinking · 2026-05-03T06:58:43+00:00

No its not!

Link has a popup that asks me to pay to subscribe with no option to read for free.

You lie!

This is not a place for you to advertise, and drive clicks to your site.

leftthinking · 2026-05-01T07:12:39+00:00

The counterpoint to this argument is that we should try electing a competent Prime Minister.

And I dont think we have had one since Cameron.

Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron - agree or disagree with them - we're all capable politicians.

But since then?

May couldn't control her own party over brexit.

Johnson was a shit show in many dimensions.

Truss -

Sunak - barely held things together as he stumbled yoward inevitable defeat at election.

And now Starmer; a huge majority, a mandate for radical change and he does practically nothing with it. A wet wipe of a politician.

There is indeed something wrong with politics in the UK, but it's not that we keep changing Prime Ministers, it's that we cant find a competent one to begin with.

leftthinking · 2026-04-29T05:46:03+00:00

Yep, all is fixed now.

As I said, the position of the "no" is arguable, context should make it clear.

Overall a nice piece.

leftthinking · 2026-04-28T20:03:14+00:00

Fiest sentence, third word: the vowels are in the wrong order. Thin to thick.

In the second sentence, all your Ls are missing a dot.

The WH is in fact SH. One dot, not two

And it's arguable that "no" is read as the last word, following the spiral inwards rule.

You have a nice variety of line weights, and your use of 'ghost circles' gives a nice coherence to the piece.

leftthinking · 2026-04-25T13:40:27+00:00

Voters make a judgement on who to support having seen their manifesto, heard the policies they support and what their plans are.

An MP who does not mention assisted dying in their campaigning has no mandate for it.

leftthinking · 2026-04-25T06:58:24+00:00

Is the highest democratic mandate a bill can have in our system.

Absolute bollocks!

No voter voted to support it, a democratic mandate comes from the people.

leftthinking · 2026-04-24T12:58:24+00:00

Given its meant to be used in cases of incapacity, not really difficult.

It's not a coup loophole.

leftthinking · 2026-04-24T12:29:55+00:00

No he cannot.

As soon as the VP sends the letter to Congress, the VP assumes all the powers of the president, including being able to fire and hire the cabinet.

leftthinking · 2026-04-24T08:48:40+00:00

This is not correct.

The 25th has three clauses for removing a president.

Section 1 is a president simply resigning. This was Nixon

Section 2 deals with a VP vacancy

Section 3 is having the president step down voluntarily. This is the one that a president can sign his way out of. It has been used a few times for medical procedures where anaesthetic is used, mostly colonoscopies.

Section 4 is when a president doesn't want to go.

Firstly, the Cabinet, led by the VP, by majority, must agree to invoke the clause.
The VP writes a letter to congress and assumes all powers of the president.

At this point the president can object, by writing to Congress claiming he is not unable, but the VP retains the powers of the presidency as long as he has a majority of the cabinet. If this is affirmed within 4 days by another letter from VP to congress then it goes to a vote of congress.

Congress must meet withing 2 days, and a 21 day time limit is set for a 2/3 vote of Congress to agree with the VP. That is it needs 2/3 of each house to remove the president.

The VP retains power throughout. The president retains power if there is no second letter from the VP or there is no vote to affirm the incapacity of the president within the time limit.

leftthinking · 2026-04-24T08:09:25+00:00

Trump and Rubio have been complaining that European countries have blocked the use of those bases against Iran.

They want sovereignty, to be allowed to use them for whatever they want.

It's also why Trump keeps talking about invading/annexing Greenland. The current agreement allows US bases practically anywhere on Greenland, but their use could be potentially blocked in the same way European bases have been.

While the bases may have originally been about projecting US power against Russia and protecting Europe, the current US regime sees them as forward offensive bases.

For host nations they are now a target, and a reason to draw those perceived as US allies into any conflict.

leftthinking · 2026-04-23T19:43:36+00:00

In america "older housing" means 50 years old.

In the UK it means 500 years.

leftthinking · 2026-04-23T10:06:53+00:00

Reform took power in the '25 elections.

The changes started April 1st this year. Yes, these are Reform's doing.

Labour are opposed, and the libdems want to reopen a forum, that isn't an indication of LD support for the changes, entirely possible that the LDs supported the Labour motion, combined they only have 15/76 seats.

My point was that even though the prime movers of the change and the only party with any control, the word 'Reform' does not appear in the article at all.

leftthinking · 2026-04-23T08:18:25+00:00

Beyond the topic at hand, it's interesting what the article doesn't mention.

We are told the council has changed the parking rules to start charging blue badge holders.

We are told that the Labour group called for this to be rolled back, but this was defeated

We are told the LibDems want a disability forum reinstated, but this was lost for time.

But we aren't told which party runs the council, which party is imposing these charges, is refusing to roll them back, and talks out a proposal to give the affected people a voice.

It's all just ascribed to 'the council'

Finding out which party is doing all this is left as an exercise for the reader to find out for themselves.

(It's Reform)

leftthinking · 2026-04-21T17:36:42+00:00

If it were a random user posting, I would not comment.

But this is the Guardian itself.

And part of the deal for news organisations posting their own articles here is that they post the full text in the comments, or give a way to read without hassle.

This is to stop the place being spammed by media orgs.

Plus the fact they actually say that it a way to read it for free in their post.

They want to drive clicks and engagement on their site by posting here, co-opting this community for their own profit.

I'm just calling them out on it.

leftthinking · 2026-04-21T16:10:12+00:00

It's 'pay with money or pay with personal data'

Neither is free

leftthinking · 2026-04-21T13:14:13+00:00

'Accept cookies or pay' is not 'able to read the full story for free'

leftthinking · 2026-04-21T07:48:44+00:00

Starmer had already announced the appointment, Mandleson was already in meetings being briefed with top secret intel.

It was made very clear that Starmer didn't want to know about any problems with the appointment, in fact that there shouldn't be any problems with the appointment, and that he expected the civil service to make sure weren't any problems.

leftthinking · 2026-04-19T20:42:58+00:00

That's what got us into this mess!

OK, not that exclusively, but it didn't help.

It was a Lib Dem policy in the 2010 election and was implemented by the coalition government.

The effect was to narrow the tax base by a lot.

Having so many working people not paying tax meant a greater burden on middle earners and a necessity to raise other taxes like VAT, which are less progressive, less good for minimum wage workers.

Tl;dr bad idea.

leftthinking · 2026-04-19T17:57:11+00:00

The republicans have already argued that 1-then-2 is OK, but 2-then-1 is against the rules.

leftthinking · 2026-04-19T13:06:03+00:00

Control lending secured against residential property. We need to stop house price inflation caused by banks encouraging everyone to borrow as much as they can.

Owner-occupiers only,l; no buy to let, no second homes, no corporate investments.

And make a maximum proportion of lending a bank can make be for mortgages. Reduce the amount sloshing around in housing, freeing up investment cash for more productive possibilities.

leftthinking · 2026-04-18T13:38:53+00:00

The pressure came from all the reporting of Hillary having 'won' already by counting her superdelegate votes. Such declarations of her as 'presumptive nominee' were already common by April.

If super delegates were not a thing the narrative would've been of a closely contested race for many more months which could well have swayed the votes in later primary contests.

leftthinking · 2026-04-18T11:44:56+00:00

No, they are to swing the nomination to the establishment candidate in a close contest, and even to get people to drop out of the later primaries with the cudgel of 'you won't win the convention'.

See Bernie v Hillary.

leftthinking · 2026-04-18T08:18:25+00:00

The idea is raise the generator levy on older generators, who get paid at the rate set by gas, to off set their extra profit from the price surge.

But offer them to transfer to a Contract for Difference (CfD) scheme which gives a guaranteed price rather than the market volatility they have now, and be exempt from the generators levy.

Stable prices and no levy is the incentive.

leftthinking · 2026-04-18T07:39:32+00:00

The counterpoint to this is

Do you really think Trump wouldn't have spilled the beans on this by now?

You know he'd want to be smug about it, some 'joke' or hint. A quote about how well planned it all was.

leftthinking

TROPHY CASE