Don't vote Tory

[grumpyhack]

My sister-in-law is visiting from Australia where voting is compulsory.  I wonder what difference that would make in the UK.

I've never not voted and even arranged a postal vote for the EU referendum when I was at Glastonbury.  I've maintained it since - it stays in place until you cancel it.

[Rose-Colored Boy]

21 minutes ago, grumpyhack said:

My sister-in-law is visiting from Australia where voting is compulsory.  I wonder what difference that would make in the UK.

 

It'd probably just mean people either spoilt their ballots or voted for whichever was the designated 'protest party' at that election - UKIP in 2015, Labour this time, etc. I'm broadly in favour of it, although only if you were to give people the option to register in advance as 'conscientious objectors' or something. Gets the people who just cba with voting to go and vote, but still gives people the right to not participate if they want to not participate for honest reasons.

Should definitely only be a step resorted to after first bringing in PR, though.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Zac Quinn

[grumpyhack]

1 hour ago, Zac Quinn said:

Youth turnout only estimated at 57% though, rather than the 72% that was floating around on Friday. So still plenty of us youngsters for Jeremy to inspire

[eFestivals]

10 hours ago, Zac Quinn said:

Youth turnout only estimated at 57% though, rather than the 72% that was floating around on Friday. So still plenty of us youngsters for Jeremy to inspire

Anyone stopped to think about what will get the youngsters out to vote after they've taken the free-uni bribe?

It's great they voted, but there won't always be something of such big relevance to get their attention with.

[Mozzer79]

7 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Anyone stopped to think about what will get the youngsters out to vote after they've taken the free-uni bribe?

It's great they voted, but there won't always be something of such big relevance to get their attention with.

You don't think liberal values had anything to do with this?

[eFestivals]

10 minutes ago, Mozzer79 said:

You don't think liberal values had anything to do with this?

If they support liberal values why are they supporting a socialist party?

I'm sure they support liberal values, but I'm also sure young people always have done, and it's not got them voting by as much in the past.

So i'd say liberal values has less to do with the increase in turnout than free-uni did.

I'd love to be proven wrong about that, btw, but only the future will show which it was.

Edited June 14, 2017 by eFestivals

[Mr.Tease]

18 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Anyone stopped to think about what will get the youngsters out to vote after they've taken the free-uni bribe?

It's great they voted, but there won't always be something of such big relevance to get their attention with.

I do get fed up of older people (and I'm an older person myself!) patronising and sneering at younger people. Only those under voting age would have benefited from scrapping fees, along with 18 and 19 year olds who were either in their first or second year of uni. The vast majority of young people voting Labour would not have directly benefited from it. 

[Debani]

13 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Anyone stopped to think about what will get the youngsters out to vote after they've taken the free-uni bribe?

It's great they voted, but there won't always be something of such big relevance to get their attention with.

I don't think this is why they turned out to vote.  For my kids and most of their friends, uni doesn't feature.  My eldest is 25, two others of voting age, one for the first time, they are not uni students nor prospective students, they work full time.  Many at 21 have finished uni or are about to, and many more will never attend uni.  There is something else at play.

 

[eFestivals]

Just now, Mr.Tease said:

I do get fed up of older people (and I'm an older person myself!) patronising and sneering at younger people. Only those under voting age would have benefited from scrapping fees, along with 18 and 19 year olds who were either in their first or second year of uni. The vast majority of young people voting Labour would not have directly benefited from it. 

Not true.

The Jezza promise - or exceedingly strong suggestion, anyway - was to clear the debts of current & past students too. I don't think that's a nothing.

And from what I saw of queues from where students vote - students, not young people - and from the results in Uni towns (not matched so much in non-uni towns) it looked like it was specifically students who were the biggest stronger turn out amongst youngsters.

[eFestivals]

5 minutes ago, Debani said:

I don't think this is why they turned out to vote.  For my kids and most of their friends, uni doesn't feature.  My eldest is 25, two others of voting age, one for the first time, they are not uni students nor prospective students, they work full time.  Many at 21 have finished uni or are about to, and many more will never attend uni.  There is something else at play.

 

Jeremy Corbyn Wants To Wipe Student Debt... But He’s Not Sure How He’s Going To Pay For It

[eFestivals]

Quote

Speaking to the NME, the aspiring Prime Minister said: “Yes, there is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and I’m looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden.” 

“And I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after. I will deal with it.”  

Edited June 14, 2017 by eFestivals

[Newtoit]

On 19/04/2017 at 9:37 AM, stuartbert two hats said:

Useful link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19_yf4RL133fBKscvSbID4eRKwztzY9KSI_2BMaI1bU8/htmlview?sle=true#

I wonder how much sites such as tactical2017.com did actually influence the vote for labour - as opposed to the votes going to lib dems etc?

i saw this mentioned on a number of different social media.

[Debani]

@efestivals, I think you may be missing my point.  for huge numbers of youngsters who voted, student debt is not an issue, they don't have any nor any plans to attend uni.

[eFestivals]

Just now, Debani said:

@efestivals, I think you may be missing my point.  for huge numbers of youngsters who voted, student debt is not an issue, they don't have any nor any plans to attend uni.

yep, that's some of them. But 44% of those who could vote were voting anyway.

There was an increase beyond that, and an increase where there was a clear benefit to many either 100% promised or as-good-as-promised ("I will deal with it").

If that promise had no vote effect, why make that specific promise? Other promises could have been made instead with the same funds, that would be just as beneficial to those with needs (eg: increasing welfare benefits, rather than keeping the tory cuts).

I'm not pretending that every extra vote was due to uni-fees, that would be daft - and just as daft as saying that none of those extra votes was due to it.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

12 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

 

 

To be fair not one part of that quote mentions writing the debt off.

[Mr.Tease]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

Not true.

The Jezza promise - or exceedingly strong suggestion, anyway - was to clear the debts of current & past students too. I don't think that's a nothing.

And from what I saw of queues from where students vote - students, not young people - and from the results in Uni towns (not matched so much in non-uni towns) it looked like it was specifically students who were the biggest stronger turn out amongst youngsters.

He said he'd look into but couldn't promise anything. We'd have no way of knowing the turnout of young people out of uni was or if there was a singular reason for them all voting Labour. 

I just think saying they all voted for a free tuition bribe is an oversimplification and quite dismissive of them. I remember being on the receiving end of being talked down to when younger, so I've always been determined not to do likewise when I got older. 

[Debani]

Exactly.  We don't know, just lots of conjecture and assumptions at the moment. and always need to remember that less than half of young people attend further education.

 

[Sack truck]

A question I've always had in my head is the number of further education places now compared to say 20 or 30 years ago. My instinct would be there are way more and this is part of the problem as the cost is much more than it was of old to cover. 

[eFestivals]

11 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

To be fair not one part of that quote mentions writing the debt off.

"I will deal with it" (where "it" are those old debts).

I'm quite happy to agree it can be interpreted in all ways, but I don't have any doubts about how most people with students debts would have taken it to mean, either.

 

[zahidf]

Fascinating to see Tory lines of attack on Corbyn coming back to bite them - coalition of chaos, terrorist-affiliation, weak Brexit leader. Also interesting that Corbyn did not get personal against May once.

[Mr.Tease]

Interesting article on just how bad the tory campaign was, and might explain some of the unusual results (tory HQ banned them from talking about local issues!) 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/speakerscorner/2017/06/how-tories-lost

[eFestivals]

11 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

He said he'd look into but couldn't promise anything.

He promised "I will deal with it".

 

11 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

We'd have no way of knowing the turnout of young people out of uni was or if there was a singular reason for them all voting Labour. 

I don't disagree.

Yet you're disagreeing about the suggestion that there was an increase because of particular promises.

How come you can be so certain about your take with no supporting evidence, while saying there's no supporting evidence for my take?

Yet there is supporting evidence for my take. There is evidence of beneficial promises to those people, and where such political promises are made *precisely* to attract votes.

 

11 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

I just think saying they all voted for a free tuition bribe is an oversimplification and quite dismissive of them. I remember being on the receiving end of being talked down to when younger, so I've always been determined not to do likewise when I got older. 

The oversimplification - and misrepresentation - is yours alone. I did not say "all".

And your determination isn't working very well.

[Mr.Tease]

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

Fascinating to see Tory lines of attack on Corbyn coming back to bite them - coalition of chaos, terrorist-affiliation, weak Brexit leader. Also interesting that Corbyn did not get personal against May once.

Its like some sort of modern day parable! 

[eFestivals]

13 minutes ago, Debani said:

Exactly.  We don't know, just lots of conjecture and assumptions at the moment. and always need to remember that less than half of young people attend further education.

I don't disagree.

Normal 'youth' vote: about 43%

If that's split evenly between those in education & work, that means around 1/3 to 1/2 of the (normal) non-voters are students or ex-students (20-30% of the non-voting total youth vote).

The youth vote increased by around 15-20% (of the total possible votes) -  which means the increase in turnout is more than covered by those with a student loan issue.

(I'm not really suggesting that every single one was someone with a student loan  - but it could have been).

If political promises aren't made to attract votes, what attracts votes?

[chatty]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

Anyone stopped to think about what will get the youngsters out to vote after they've taken the free-uni bribe?

It's great they voted, but there won't always be something of such big relevance to get their attention with.

I think a big factor will be just getting this generation on board. Next election in five years (or five months), they will have different issues but I think when your politically charged then youll probably always take an interest, even if it wanes off 

As for future generations its impossible to tell what will attract the youth, really depends on the state of the country. If we're in good shape then its probably less likely, if the youth cant find jobs and their lives are shit then they are more likely to get involved. 

But taking a full generation of voters is important because a full generation is gonna die off by the next election and I think with that voting patterns are going to be more obscured. 

We saw a fair bit of change in the voting this year, not so much in a huge change of seats but Tories clawing a lot more votes in the North, Labour doing well in the Southern urban areas, pretty much took London. 

Its gonna be interesting to see how that plays out over the next few elections as the past geographical demographs become less relevant. 

Edited June 14, 2017 by chatty