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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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
Fails to display in my browser. I suppose it is only for those /. readers who use windows.
Don't worry, you didn't miss anything. It is just a flashier version of a chart based on "number of times an MP voted against the whip", showing (astonishingly) that some people have done so more than others.
In spite of the slashdot-friendly headline, it doesn't have anything to do with rebels or alliances.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Were you looking at the same webpage?
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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.
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?