Hi - just to say some of us are already getting involved in opposing this - I've started by tabling some written questions about the proposals, and am expecting public answers next week...
Please do continue to vote Lib Dem! Our party policy on this is fairly clear, but we can't entirely control what individual parliamentarians do, especially Lords.... (elected Lords anybody?)
I should say that I'm the Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Cambridge...
I and many colleagues have contacted the party and those peers to push the party line - which is clearly against any sort of DMCA-UK.
You may be interested in official party policy at http://www.makeitpolicy.org.uk/it-policy-paper/delivering-the-information-society/regulation-of-internet-content-and-copyright/
Otherwise, can I suggest you write to your local candidate and ask them what they think? You'll find many of us on the Open Rights side....
Julian
Sorry - this is wrong on a number of levels - as the poster notes later, the Liberal Democrats (NB not the Liberals, an extremely small rump party) didn't get more votes that the Conservatives, sadly. We (I was a parliamentary candidate for the Lib Dems, coming in second) did get rather fewer seats than our vote share reflected, as a result of FPTP - we need to change the electoral system. clearly.
However, I don't think it's fair to say that there is significant Gerrymandering in the UK - the Boundary Commission works quite fairly here (again, I've been a witness at one of their hearings). It does take fewer votes to elect a Labour MP than a Tory MP, but this is essentially because of lower turn-outs in labour strongholds than Conservative ones. Unless constituency sizes are changed based on turnouts rather than population or number of registered voters, this will always be a problem with any constituency-based system.
Julian
Sadly, Arrow's theorem still applies for single-person elections. The problem is with the independence axiom - Condorcet (like other schemes) can be gamed by people changing what ought to be irrelevant orderings. Similarly, there must be situations in which the addition of new voters, ranking a previous winner first, causes them to lose. There's a formal proof of this for single-winner elections at this location.
Nice to have someone else who at least knows this stuff....
I'm astonished that no-one's yet mentioned Arrow's Theorem here. This shows that there is not and cannot be a fair voting system, given a few basic assumptions - in other words, while you can create a voting profile such that Condorcet (for example) is 'fairer' than STV, say, one can equally produce profiles where Condorcet is clearly flawed and STV is better, and so on.
All one can do is develop a system that works relatively well - STV is often held to be a good solution, though necessarily non-optimal.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah - but I very rarely have a chance to post!
Julian
Hi - just to say some of us are already getting involved in opposing this - I've started by tabling some written questions about the proposals, and am expecting public answers next week...
Julian Huppert
Lib Dem MP for Cambridge
Great and many thanks ... Have we met? If you're interested in helping out we can always use assistance!
There are plans - see for example http://www.libdemvoice.org/twentyfive-lib-dem-ppcs-sign-letter-asking-lib-dem-parliamentarians-to-think-again-on-digital-economy-bill-18185.html
I'm expecting more shortly ...
Julian
Exactly - this is not Lib Dem party policy! See http://www.makeitpolicy.org.uk/it-policy-paper/delivering-the-information-society/regulation-of-internet-content-and-copyright/ Certainly I as Lib Dem Candidate for Cambridge don't support it - and I'm very much not alone in the Lib Dems! Julian
Please do continue to vote Lib Dem! Our party policy on this is fairly clear, but we can't entirely control what individual parliamentarians do, especially Lords .... (elected Lords anybody?)
I should say that I'm the Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Cambridge ...
I and many colleagues have contacted the party and those peers to push the party line - which is clearly against any sort of DMCA-UK.
You may be interested in official party policy at http://www.makeitpolicy.org.uk/it-policy-paper/delivering-the-information-society/regulation-of-internet-content-and-copyright/
Otherwise, can I suggest you write to your local candidate and ask them what they think? You'll find many of us on the Open Rights side ....
Julian
Sorry - this is wrong on a number of levels - as the poster notes later, the Liberal Democrats (NB not the Liberals, an extremely small rump party) didn't get more votes that the Conservatives, sadly. We (I was a parliamentary candidate for the Lib Dems, coming in second) did get rather fewer seats than our vote share reflected, as a result of FPTP - we need to change the electoral system. clearly. However, I don't think it's fair to say that there is significant Gerrymandering in the UK - the Boundary Commission works quite fairly here (again, I've been a witness at one of their hearings). It does take fewer votes to elect a Labour MP than a Tory MP, but this is essentially because of lower turn-outs in labour strongholds than Conservative ones. Unless constituency sizes are changed based on turnouts rather than population or number of registered voters, this will always be a problem with any constituency-based system. Julian
Sadly, Arrow's theorem still applies for single-person elections. The problem is with the independence axiom - Condorcet (like other schemes) can be gamed by people changing what ought to be irrelevant orderings. Similarly, there must be situations in which the addition of new voters, ranking a previous winner first, causes them to lose. There's a formal proof of this for single-winner elections at this location. Nice to have someone else who at least knows this stuff ....
I'm astonished that no-one's yet mentioned Arrow's Theorem here. This shows that there is not and cannot be a fair voting system, given a few basic assumptions - in other words, while you can create a voting profile such that Condorcet (for example) is 'fairer' than STV, say, one can equally produce profiles where Condorcet is clearly flawed and STV is better, and so on.
...
All one can do is develop a system that works relatively well - STV is often held to be a good solution, though necessarily non-optimal.
And yes, I am a political anorak