I would guess it would have to count as a donation. Otherwise you might as well not bother with limits at all.

 

But you'd need to be careful with that - anyone could *claim* to be a party supporter, and make an unregistered donation, just to get the recipient in expenses trouble...

But you'd need to be careful with that - anyone could *claim* to be a party supporter, and make an unregistered donation, just to get the recipient in expenses trouble...

Which is why the whole subject needs to be reviewed.

Which is why the whole subject needs to be reviewed.

 

Indeed - but then Michael tends to claim that any attempt to review controls by the gov't, secretly means abolish them... :teresa:

Well it's more like we have no trust in the government whatsoever to introduce any electoral law without asking 'wait, but how does this help us win more seats than Labour?'.

Well it's more like we have no trust in the government whatsoever to introduce any electoral law without asking 'wait, but how does this help us win more seats than Labour?'.

 

They wouldn't need to, when they have a perfectly legitimate way of doing so already, via Boundary Reviews.

 

To clarify (mostly for Michael) - Boundary reviews are not *designed* to help the Tories, but to equalize electorate sizes. But due to the tendency for Tory constituencies to grow over time, and Labour ones to shrink, you get a situation where it takes fewer votes on average to elect a Labour MP than a Tory one.

Edited December 14, 20195 yr by vidsanta

Well it's more like we have no trust in the government whatsoever to introduce any electoral law without asking 'wait, but how does this help us win more seats than Labour?'.

I did say that I have no reason to believe Johnson will do anything about it.

I did say that I have no reason to believe Johnson will do anything about it.

 

Fair enough, but you know what Michael is like. ;)

They wouldn't need to, when they have a perfectly legitimate way of doing so already, via Boundary Reviews.

 

To clarify (mostly for Michael) - Boundary reviews are not *designed* to help the Tories, but to equalize electorate sizes. But due to the tendency for Tory constituencies to grow over time, and Labour ones to shrink, you get a situation where it takes fewer votes on average to elect a Labour MP than a Tory one.

Nonsense.

 

As you've been told many times before (this is without looking at the new electoral map), under the current boundaries the Tories would win more seats than Labour if they got the same share of the vote. The proposed new boundaries skew that even more.

 

If they want to demonstrate even the slightest commitment to fairness, they need to start again. The old proposals were (probably deliberately) based on a register with millions of missing voters. That wasn't a problem when the boundaries were partly based on total population rather than the electorate. Individual registration exacerbated the issue. However, basing it on an immediate post-election register would help to dampen the effect.

 

The other issue was the pointless desire to reduce the number of MPs. Cameron talked about "cutting the cost of democracy". Leaving aside the matter of why that is assumed to be a good thing, the actual saving has never been quantified - probably because it is such a trivial sum. The only figure I have ever seen is based on the ludicrous assumption that if the average cost of an MP is £X, then reducing their numbers by 50 will save £50X.

 

Furthermore, reducing the number of MPs will simply exaggerate any advantage caused by the iniquities of FTPP. That, and most of the above, can of course be solved by introducing a proper voting system fitr for the 21st century.

 

 

BTW, this is the number of votes it took to elect an MP of each party on Thursday

 

Con 38,264

Lab 50,587

SNP 25,883

LD 336,038

Grn 865,697

Furthermore, reducing the number of MPs will simply exaggerate any advantage caused by the iniquities of FTPP. That, and most of the above, can of course be solved by introducing a proper voting system fitr for the 21st century.

 

Somehow I don't think that turkeys will vote for Xmas, though... :(

 

Somehow I don't think that turkeys will vote for Xmas, though... :(

 

Well, the electorate just did :basil:

 

Suede’s comments about the boundary review are completely right. It’s a pointless exercise that needs to go in for another review before it skews the representation of our democracy beyond repair.

They wouldn't need to, when they have a perfectly legitimate way of doing so already, via Boundary Reviews.

 

To clarify (mostly for Michael) - Boundary reviews are not *designed* to help the Tories, but to equalize electorate sizes. But due to the tendency for Tory constituencies to grow over time, and Labour ones to shrink, you get a situation where it takes fewer votes on average to elect a Labour MP than a Tory one.

 

50k votes to get a Lab mp

38 votes to get a Tory mp

 

Whoops. Also, the Tory changes would completely change the way constituencies are set. The TORIES tell the commission the changes THEY want and the commission sets about making them, sooo yeaaah.

 

Well, the electorate just did :basil:

 

Suede’s comments about the boundary review are completely right. It’s a pointless exercise that needs to go in for another review before it skews the representation of our democracy beyond repair.

 

There's plenty of time before 2024, I suppose.

 

50k votes to get a Lab mp

38 votes to get a Tory mp

 

Whoops. Also, the Tory changes would completely change the way constituencies are set. The TORIES tell the commission the changes THEY want and the commission sets about making them, sooo yeaaah.

 

How many times?! The boundary review is independent!

Acting on the "suggestions" the TORIES make!!!!

Acting on the "suggestions" the TORIES make!!!!

 

They act on the suggestions each party makes :mellow:

No. On the RULING party. Look into it. You will find that everyone BUT the tories and their apologists, that's you, are against these undemocratic changes.

No. On the RULING party. Look into it. You will find that everyone BUT the tories and their apologists, that's you, are against these undemocratic changes.

 

Pardon me, but I have said many times that I support electoral reform, STV specifically.

 

However, I am also a realist.

Just to clarify the position re the boundary commission.

 

Yes, it is an independent body. Yes, it receives submissions from all parties (as well as people and organisations with no party affiliation). However, the rules are set by the government.

 

Under the old rules, the commission had to consider local community boundaries and would only have constituencies that cross local authority boundaries in exceptional circumstances. The new rules changed that. Having a near-equal number of voters per constituency is now considered more important than having boundaries that make some sort of sense. That in itself means that submissions to the commission will carry less weight than before.

 

There is another aspect to the changed rules that is often overlooked. The intention is that the boundaries are reviewed after every election instead of after two or three elections. A boundary review cannot be completed in a couple weeks - it takes more like two or three years. By the time the legislation to confirm the boundaries has been passed, there will only be about eighteen months to go before the next election. That hand a massive advantage to incumbent MPs. That has always been the case, but more frequent reviews will mean it happens at every election, not just every three elections or so.

 

Furthermore, under the old rules, it was possible to have a pretty good guess about what the new boundaries would be like. A party in a constituency likely to be more or less unchanged could select a candidate in the expectation that they could start to make themselves known. The chances of finding that the new constituency looked completely different - or that the seat had been abolished altogether - were fairly slim. Not any more.

Just to clarify the position re the boundary commission.

 

Yes, it is an independent body. Yes, it receives submissions from all parties (as well as people and organisations with no party affiliation). However, the rules are set by the government.

 

Under the old rules, the commission had to consider local community boundaries and would only have constituencies that cross local authority boundaries in exceptional circumstances. The new rules changed that. Having a near-equal number of voters per constituency is now considered more important than having boundaries that make some sort of sense. That in itself means that submissions to the commission will carry less weight than before.

 

There is another aspect to the changed rules that is often overlooked. The intention is that the boundaries are reviewed after every election instead of after two or three elections. A boundary review cannot be completed in a couple weeks - it takes more like two or three years. By the time the legislation to confirm the boundaries has been passed, there will only be about eighteen months to go before the next election. That hand a massive advantage to incumbent MPs. That has always been the case, but more frequent reviews will mean it happens at every election, not just every three elections or so.

 

Furthermore, under the old rules, it was possible to have a pretty good guess about what the new boundaries would be like. A party in a constituency likely to be more or less unchanged could select a candidate in the expectation that they could start to make themselves known. The chances of finding that the new constituency looked completely different - or that the seat had been abolished altogether - were fairly slim. Not any more.

 

Thank you for the clarification. :)

Well Nicky Morgan’s desperate efforts have paid off and she’s somehow been awarded a peerage and will be Minister for DCMS...

 

No integrity to that woman at all