The Lib Dems will be asked at the next election which coalition policies they would be happy to reverse. They have already indicated that they would support abolition of secret courts, the bedroom tax and elected PCCs which is an encouraging start. At least two of those three should make a deal with Labour easier to negotiate.

 

Of course the Tories should be asked the same questions but I doubt they will be. Therefore, they won't be asked whether they will, for example, continue the pupil premium.

Last two are Labour policy (which makes me even more exasperated that we need a by-election in South Yorkshire for someone who'll have a job for a few months, but hey ho).

Last two are Labour policy (which makes me even more exasperated that we need a by-election in South Yorkshire for someone who'll have a job for a few months, but hey ho).

They are the two I had in mind.

 

I suspect the Lib Dem negotiators thought elected PCCs were relatively harmless and not worth making much of a fuss about. The Tories were determined to get them through so it was probably seen as a reasonably cheap concession by the Lib Dems. If they had known how low the turnout would be they may have made more effort to get the policy dropped.

 

The whole idea of elected PCCs was always rubbish but the rule on filling a vacancy made it even worse. It is very easy to trigger a by-election within a couple months of a vacancy arising. That seems to have been an over-reaction to the fact that there are no rules governing when a parliamentary by-election has to be held. There is a convention that it should be held within three months but there are no specific rules.

It's also ageist. Assuming people change their voting habits due to being older or younger.

What's ageist about that? It's pretty well recognised that voting habits evolve during age. There's a reason for the old 'socialist at 20, conservative at 40' adage.

They are the two I had in mind.

 

I suspect the Lib Dem negotiators thought elected PCCs were relatively harmless and not worth making much of a fuss about. The Tories were determined to get them through so it was probably seen as a reasonably cheap concession by the Lib Dems. If they had known how low the turnout would be they may have made more effort to get the policy dropped.

 

The whole idea of elected PCCs was always rubbish but the rule on filling a vacancy made it even worse. It is very easy to trigger a by-election within a couple months of a vacancy arising. That seems to have been an over-reaction to the fact that there are no rules governing when a parliamentary by-election has to be held. There is a convention that it should be held within three months but there are no specific rules.

I don't actually begrudge the PCCs concession much, direct democracy has its merits (even if the police force isn't a great example) and like you said it's a fairly minor issue.

What's ageist about that? It's pretty well recognised that voting habits evolve during age. There's a reason for the old 'socialist at 20, conservative at 40' adage.

 

It's the whole principle of categorizing people into convenient groups that can be targeted and packaged that I object to. The idea that someone who's, say 56, is going to be less-left-wing than someone who's 25 and well-off is a nonsense. I think it's more to with having more to consider (eg mortgages and a kids) than actual age, plus more life experiences to draw on so there's a bit of "i've heard it all before and that's never been delivered".

It's the whole principle of categorizing people into convenient groups that can be targeted and packaged that I object to.

It's heuristics. 'On average x group tends to be more y' isn't an especially offensive thing to say so long as you aren't assuming everyone in x is y or imply that we should treat that group in a worse way because of their general support for y.

It's a statistical analysis not a secret police state targeting those who voted no

Statistical analysis of general elections doesn't violate the secret ballot by trying to match polling numbers to votes, it doesn't need to do it with this either. The second you legitimise any state action allowing them to know who voted for what, what then stops demands to use that information in future - or indeed, lets voters vote the way they want to safe in the knowledge nobody else will ever have to know? We know it isn't a secret police state targeting those who voted No - but would a particularly paranoid or ill-informed Yes or No voter have voted the same way as they did if they believed the government could know and that there could be repercussions?

 

It lets a genie out of the bottle for the sake of something that we've gotten by perfectly fine using other forms of data (such as exit polls and extensive surveying by the British Election Study) in the past.