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Visualizations of Rebel Alliances In the UK Government
An anonymous reader writes: I just published an article and thought it might be of interest to Slashdot readers. It's about a collection visualizations I created based on public voting data from The Public Whip project, which collects and normalizes voting data from the UK House of Commons. The visualizations show relationships between MPs, with a focus on agreement rates, and more interestingly — rebellion.
I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.
And what, pray tell, is this putative rebellion against? Against Labour? The Tories? The Greens? The Crown itself?
Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Count Dooku, and the other Sith, of course.
Dooku? No A in Galactic History for you. Vader didn't get that Sith title until well after Dooku was dead. Heck, the Empire didn't even exist at that point to rebel against.
You are part of the rebel alliance and a traitor....
Until someone can show me some concrete examples I have a hard time imagine parliamentarians / congress critters rebelling against TPTB
No matter what the politicians tell you when they need your vote, once they got elected they will become part and parcel of The Syndicate
Whether you like it or not, humans are herd animals, and it is very natural for herd animals (including human beings) to become part of the herd
Once the politicians got elected he or she gonna spend most of his/her time with other politicians. Thus, them becoming part of The Syndicate no matter what they have promised their constituents, is very natural
What sort of moron calls them "rebel alliances"
You don't have to have visited a place (or even be able to point it out on a map) to be a total expert on it here.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Fails to display in my browser. I suppose it is only for those /. readers who use windows.
Since you didn't RTFA to answer your own question I presume you ask it insincerely so I won't answer it here.
Author here - the visualizations shows relationships between MPs who have rebelled against the majority vote (whip) of their parties. The article is about the relationships that can be detected in MP voting data, rather than any particular rebellion.
It seems to be talking of rebelling against the party whip.
I'm also guessing English isn't the first language of the poster, or they were so excited, they were typing faster than they could collectively visualisation the words they were typing.
MPs voting their conscience and/or constituents' interest is what's supposed to happen. The one blindly voting the party line is technically a traitor.
I imagine the author could get work consulting in westminster, especailly if there is another minority / coaliiton government.
As an aside, is there really an MP named Mark Reckless? Is it any surprise he is part of the rebellious group?
Not really. They have specific "free votes" where MPs can vote however they like on matters of conscience. On everything else they are supposed to tow the party line and vote as instructed, or be kicked out. That's how the party system is supposed to work, in order to create strong and stable governments.
It would be much better if we had consensus politics with coalitions of multiple parties, say with a PR system to elect MPs. The system we have now always results in most people not having their views represented in government. Although AV was not ideal either, it would have been a step in the right direction, but people openly admitted that they were too thick to understand that extremely simple concept, so we lost our chance and have to accept this is the way things are now. The majority (of idiots) has spoken.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is commonly repeated, but clearly not true in practice. People, in general, do not vote for an MP; they vote for a party. So your MP voting against their party may (or may not) be what you wanted.
Interestingly, in my own case, my MP is a Lib Dem whose supporters are pretty evenly split between those who actually support Lib Dem policies and tactical votes from Labour supporters in a constituency where Labour have little chance of winning. And he pops up as a relatively large rebel in between the coalition and Labour clusters which maybe reflects his support quite well.
Why he rebels in the way he does is for him to know. You could read it as him having done a pretty good job of representing his constituent's interests even where it conflicts with his party line; although when you look at *what* he rebelled on he may have just picked things to look rebellious to those who want him to be.
Since you didn't RTFA to answer your own question I presume you ask it insincerely so I won't answer it here.
RTFA? That's against the rules here, you know.
So I'm a yankee and don't get it, I consider "rebellion" to be a rather strong word that implies an active attempt to overthrow the government. Something we have a history of doing from time to time, and is a bit frightening. At the same time, someone in party not voting the party line is somewhat unusual, but happens often enough. Is this term "rebellion" commonly used to refer to someone who splits from the party line? Is it strictly illegal, simply not done, or a political maneuver to attempt to shift policy?
This video does a pretty good job of explaining things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hctaPkuh4Y
Essentially the article is about rebellions in the House of Commons, where the Members of Parliament don't vote according to party policy. It used to be very rare, but is much more common these days - for example Philip Hollobone from the Conservative party rebelled in 20% of his votes. It's not illegal, but it's not exactly good for your career as an MP. Rebellions may be a sign of divisions within political parties, or of individuals who are on the verge of defecting to other parties such as Mark Reckless.
Imagine a parliament with no parties, just 650 people each with their own agenda from their constituents.
Member A turns to Member B and says, "I'll support your claim to assert exclusive fishing rights over the Dogger Bank, if in return you'll support my claim to order two new frigates for the Navy to enforce those rights".
And right then and there, a party is born. That's how parties came about in the first place. Once you understand that simple mechanic, it doesn't take a lot more thought to reach the conclusion that "actually, maybe we're better off with large, clearly defined parties - which are advertised on the ballot paper - than without them."