BBO Discussion Forums: Three weeks until the election - BBO Discussion Forums

 blackshoe, on 2015-May-17, 20:38, said:

According to this table the population density of the United States is 32.67/km², that of the EU 116 and the UK 262 (third in Europe, and with much more uninhabitable area [mountains] than the Netherlands or Belgium).

 NickRW, on 2010-August-03, 11:02, said:

 jeremy69, on 2010-August-03, 13:49, said:

 Vampyr, on 2015-May-18, 02:09, said:

Though I really think this shouldn't be about juggling numbers, this is an example that could come straight out of "How to lie with Statistics".

The UK has a population density of 262/km². And, yes, some of those km² are uninhabitable since they are mountains. The uninhabitable area is also certainly larger than that of the Netherlands (since the UK is larger than the Netherlands). And when you put these facts together, you are nicely suggesting that the UK would be at least as overcrowded as the Netherlands. Darrell Huff would be proud of you. Suggesting something, with numbers that seem to back it up, without actually saying it!

However, the suggestion would be entirely different if you would have added that:

• the population density of the Netherlands is 407/km²
  
• this figure (and that for the UK) is based on land and water
  
• water alone makes up almost 20% of the area of the Netherlands (UK: a little over 1%)
  
• this makes the land based population density of the Netherlands almost twice as high as that of the UK (499/km² vs 266/km²)
  
• a large fraction of the Netherlands is uninhabitable since it is either in the winter bed of rivers (i.e. dry in summer, flooded in winter) or so swampy that it is impossible or extremely costly to build anything*.
  
• a large part of the Netherlands used to be lake or sea and would return to be lake or sea within weeks if the Dutch didn't work hard to stop that from happening (i.e. this area is uninhabitable, but the Dutch make it inhabitable, day in day out).

But as I said, this discussion shouldn't be about for whom it is the bigger burden to receive refugees. It should be about taking responsibility and giving other people the same right to seek security and happiness as we have.

Rik

* Small buildings (like single family houses and lower apartment buildings) can be (and are) constructed by building them on poles going through the swamp layer into the Pleiocene sand layer (mind you: sand, not rock). This layer is at a depth of 50 m (160 ft), meaning that the buildings (and roads, etc.) are standing on 50 m long poles. This would certainly fit Vampyr's definition of uninhabitable.

Separate the figures for England and the other countries, England has 80%+ of the population of the UK, but only just over half the land area, it's density was about 415 per square km (if the 2013 figures I got off the net are right) and is where almost all the population growth is.

Scotland has 1/10 the population and 60% of the area of England.

The level of debate in this thread is amazing, even by BBF standards. E.g.
- Making arguments based on the population density of the US - that doesn't even deserve a LOL.
- Yes, there is a housing crisis in London. The reason is that people aren't allowed to build enough houses. I know a solution to that!
- Then there is this stupid idea that the economy has a fixed size, and if there are more people coming in, then everyone gets a smaller size of the pie. By the same logic, everyone in England would have become 10% richer if Scotland had voted "Yes" in the referendum.
- If your infrastructure is broken, fix your infrastructure. You won't fix it by keeping immigrants broke.

I know that 14% in England voted for a jerk making a political career off xenophobic fears - for some reason it's still disappointing to see that same B.S. here. Yeah I should know better than reading watercooler's political threads.

 akwoo, on 2015-May-15, 11:09, said:

1. I didn't introduce the concept of discrimination on the basis of race. You put your statement in quotes as if I said that, which I did not.

2. With regard to competition for jobs, tell that to, for example, my son's partner who has a degree but stacks supermarket shelves for a living or one of my other sons who has multiple college qualifications in the building industry and who can't get a job in said industry even on the basis of free work to get experience while foreigners are doing the work he could be doing.

It took us a while but we have now arrived at the point where people who disagree with the writer are obviously stupid xenophobic jerks. I have never found it to be a good use of my time to discuss whether or not I am a stupid xenophobic jerk. I also seldom change my mind as a result of being described as a stupid xenophobic jerk.

Maybe other people react differently.

 cherdano, on 2015-May-18, 04:09, said:

Well, when the US has the same density as England, its population will be pushing 4 billion. Good luck with getting as much traction with your ideas under those circumstances.

As for xenophobia, my sentiments are as per Ken's above.

 cherdano, on 2015-May-18, 04:09, said:

I understand what you're saying, but your arguments are too simplistic.

Actually there is a legitimate argument that England would have got richer without the Scots although not by quite as much as 10%, given that government spending per Scot from London is higher than per Englishman due to an arcane instrument called the Barnett formula.

People are allowed to build houses in/near London, the problem is that there is no profit in building affordable houses, and most housebuilding is private, so this doesn't really help the problem. Councils already stretched can't afford to build houses themselves.

The overall problem is that the space for extra people is not where the jobs are or can sensibly be.

Having pupils with 130 (I seem to remember that figure as one example from an interview, but can't find a source) different first languages and very poor English in a school is a nightmare for some of the London councils.

I would like to get back for a moment to the election and the polls. What happened? I understand that Labour might have done better with a different leader, but the leader was known when the polls were taken. Voters elect an MP rather than cast a vote directly for the PM, but the pollsters knew this also (of course). The election was predicted to be very close. I see that the Conservatives have 330 seats out of 650, Labour has 232. No one calls that close.

No politician in the US can sneeze without having fifty analysts discussing the meaning of this momentous event. Maybe the UK has not reached that point yet, but surely there has been some analysis of how the predictions were so far off. Is there a consensus? Or at least a prevalent view?

There is no concencus other than that it was known in advance that the election would be difficult to predict because of the possibility that many who claimed to intend to vote for a third party might end up voting tactically for one of the two main parties in their constituency. This is always the case in the uk but this time more so.

I have also seen it suggested that the conservatives were ahead for a long time but that poll pannels tend to be shy of admitting to support conservatives. I personally find this hard to believe but maybe, given the toxicity of the right wing press, some people are afraid of admitting to vote in line with dirty newspapers.
Participation rates are generally higher for right wing than for left and pollers try to adjust for this but maybe this time it was more pronounced due to disillusioned libdems and the labour leader's lack of charisma.

Something else: The press writes a lot about the collapase of the labour party these days. I don't see why. Labour increased their share of the votes a little bit compared to the (admittedly very bad) 2010 results, which is an OK result given the surge of SNP, Greens and UKIP, all of which compete with Labour (yeah I know labour supporters may be reluctant to admit that they compete with UKIP but it is true). Labour had a more left-winged leader this time, while the conservatives have a relatively moderate leader. These factors should move some centrist voters towards the conservatives. And a number of newspapers fought a very dirty war against Labour, allowing the conservatives to be the nice guys as they didn't need to throw mud themselves.

So given the circumstances I think Labour did OK. The polls had predicted they would do better but maybe the polls have been biased for a long time.

LibDems, on the other hand, were badly hit and it may take them decades to recover.

 Trinidad, on 2015-May-18, 03:43, said:

You don't give people rights. They have rights. You may or may not acknowledge those rights, but they still have them. As for "taking responsibility" what does that mean? What is it for which Europeans are supposedly responsible, and why?

 kenberg, on 2015-May-18, 07:37, said:

Well actually it was closer than you think, there are another 60+ MPs who while not labour MPs, would probably vote with a labour government and aganst a conservative one. Only maybe 8 non conservatives would vote with them most of the time.

 Cyberyeti, on 2015-May-18, 08:42, said:

I see. So if we break it down as "Conservative or would vote with Conservative" versus "Labour or would vote with Labour" the numbers are substantially closer. Got it, thanks. It is still more of a win for Conservatives than was predicted, but not nearly as dramatically so as I was thinking.

 Cyberyeti, on 2015-May-18, 08:42, said:

The parties' percents of the votes were:
Con: 36.9
Lab: 30.5
UKIP: 12.6
Lib: 7.8
SNP: 4.7
Green: 3.8
(which leaves about 3.7 to smaller parties and independents)http://www.cityam.co...sed-votes-alone

The three left-winged parties got more votes than the conservatives, but then again probably most of the UKIP voters are closer to the Conservatives than to Labour. Who knows about LibDem voters. Traditionaly they are progressive but maybe the party's left wing deserted them this time.

So if people were simply given a choice between labour and conservatives, probably it would be very close to 50/50. I find it scary that a party that gets 36.9% of the votes can rule without having to compromise on anything. If it had been 30% left extremist party, 40% moderate party and 30% right extremist party maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But some of the conservatives' policies are at the extreme of the spectrum. They will make a lot of decisions which are not supported by a majority of the voters.

Note that the system does not always favour the conservatives. In 2005, Labour got 35.2% which was also enough for a majority in the House.

Another note to Helene's figures. Labour fiddled things significantly over its 13 years in government, I don't know what 36.9% labour 30.5% conservative would have looked like in terms of seats, but I'm guessing 150 seat labour majority. The libdems prevented the conservatives fixing this during the last parliament (in a fit of pique after the conservatives couldn't get some libdem legislation past their right wing).

The current system DOESN'T favour the conservatives, it's just a normal side effect of first past the post.

 Trinidad, on 2015-May-18, 03:43, said:

How many times must I ask you to stop saying things and then claiming I said it?

Anyway, see post 144.

 helene_t, on 2015-May-18, 09:15, said:

I agree with that, but on the other hand, imagine that there wouldn't be a district system and these percentages of the votes would have yielded these percentages of seats. What kind of a coalition would you envision that would be backed by 50% of the seats?

Somebody needs to govern the country. The district system favors the bigger parties. That makes it easier to form a government. The "one man, one vote" system leads to long negotiations to form a government. But once that government is in place, it will be more balanced/moderate.

Rik

 Cyberyeti, on 2015-May-18, 11:41, said:

Do you mean gerrymandering? Is there any evidence that the Tories have done this as well?

 Vampyr, on 2015-May-18, 14:32, said:

I don't know pre Blair, all I know is that post Blair/Brown, we've had 2 elections, the first was a hung parliament which had the shares of the vote been reversed would have been a 100+ seat labour majority, and I hate to think what this one would have looked like with he shares of the vote reversed.