| Politically minded folk - an interesting website 10:54 - Mar 9 with 817 views | baxterbasics |
I have just become aware of House of the People, which offers us a chance to give your vote on every piece of legislation coming through parliament, as well as other current hot topics. It tracks public opinion and measures the gap between public and parliament. It indicates which MP or minister tabled the legislation and how your own MP has voted, and at what stage the legislation is at between proposal and Royal Assent.
Obviously the more people participate, the more accurate it becomes - and is certainly useful for those wanting to be more aware of what those in power are doing without the need to have 'parliament TV' on all day long. I hope it takes off.
https://houseofthepeople.com/
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:04 - Mar 9 with 783 views | Swansea_Blue |
Seems a good idea in theory. The top bill (Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill) is an eye opener. Only small numbers are voting, but bloody hell. 89% opposed to doing things like:
- reforms to strengthen child protection systems, improve support for vulnerable children, and raise standards across education and social care.
- Mandating family group decision-making meetings before care proceedings to keep children with families where safe
- to improve information-sharing and coordination across [child protection] services.
- Enhanced support for care-experienced children .. to ensure vulnerable young people have stability during transitions.
- Stronger regulation of private children's social care providers … tackling profiteering and improving care quality.
Who wants to improve support for vulnerable kids eh? Woke nonsense. Send the down the mines! |  |
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:14 - Mar 9 with 757 views | Guthrum |
Looks interesting.
However, a bit like commenting upon court cases without having heard arguments and cross-examination in full, site members are being asked to vote upon legislation when they haven't heard the full parliamentary debate, let alone the committee stages. So it's taking a position on the bare bones of the bill itself, rather than the arguments surrounding it (unless you have Parliament TV on all day long).
The advantage, on the other hand, is no pressure (or whipping) to vote along party lines - altho personal bias will still come into it.
It's a good experiment. But is limited to snap judgements rather than full-scale direct democracy. |  |
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:16 - Mar 9 with 748 views | Herbivore |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:04 - Mar 9 by Swansea_Blue |
Seems a good idea in theory. The top bill (Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill) is an eye opener. Only small numbers are voting, but bloody hell. 89% opposed to doing things like:
- reforms to strengthen child protection systems, improve support for vulnerable children, and raise standards across education and social care.
- Mandating family group decision-making meetings before care proceedings to keep children with families where safe
- to improve information-sharing and coordination across [child protection] services.
- Enhanced support for care-experienced children .. to ensure vulnerable young people have stability during transitions.
- Stronger regulation of private children's social care providers … tackling profiteering and improving care quality.
Who wants to improve support for vulnerable kids eh? Woke nonsense. Send the down the mines! |
Which makes me wonder who is pushing the site because I'd be surprised if polling using proper methodology came out with nearly 90% of the public being opposed to those measures. |  |
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:22 - Mar 9 with 731 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:16 - Mar 9 by Herbivore |
Which makes me wonder who is pushing the site because I'd be surprised if polling using proper methodology came out with nearly 90% of the public being opposed to those measures. |
Yep, it wouldn’t take much to skew results. That could easily be a group of profiteering private daycare providers, as there’s only about 100 people on the poll in total. | |
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:27 - Mar 9 with 718 views | Guthrum |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:16 - Mar 9 by Herbivore |
Which makes me wonder who is pushing the site because I'd be surprised if polling using proper methodology came out with nearly 90% of the public being opposed to those measures. |
Not sure there is any methodology, just a straight counting of votes cast.
It's very small numbers at the moment - couple of hundred at most - so a single interest group can wildly skew results by bloc voting on every bill. The heavy weighting of current results against the majority of legislation not special interest or sponsored by Conservatives would suggest this is happening. | |
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:36 - Mar 9 with 678 views | baxterbasics |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:04 - Mar 9 by Swansea_Blue |
Seems a good idea in theory. The top bill (Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill) is an eye opener. Only small numbers are voting, but bloody hell. 89% opposed to doing things like:
- reforms to strengthen child protection systems, improve support for vulnerable children, and raise standards across education and social care.
- Mandating family group decision-making meetings before care proceedings to keep children with families where safe
- to improve information-sharing and coordination across [child protection] services.
- Enhanced support for care-experienced children .. to ensure vulnerable young people have stability during transitions.
- Stronger regulation of private children's social care providers … tackling profiteering and improving care quality.
Who wants to improve support for vulnerable kids eh? Woke nonsense. Send the down the mines! |
Well just because the intentions of a bill seem good does not mean the legislation itself is worthy. Our statute books are littered with well intentioned laws that either did not produce the desired result or had knock-on unintended consequences.
Ultimately our democracy only succeeds if the voting public inform themselves properly and give detailed attention to what elected officials are doing. Apathy breeds poorer governance, which in turn breeds more apathy - a vicious cycle. Something like this, in my opinion, only helps fight that cycle.
As you say, numbers are currently small and therefor not representative and easily skewed. Hence the more get involved, the better tools like this become. | |
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:45 - Mar 9 with 642 views | baxterbasics |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:16 - Mar 9 by Herbivore |
Which makes me wonder who is pushing the site because I'd be surprised if polling using proper methodology came out with nearly 90% of the public being opposed to those measures. |
The 'about' section gives a bit of info about the inspiration, purpose and values of the site and the creator himself. Always worth checking these things. | |
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 12:04 - Mar 9 with 599 views | Herbivore |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 11:45 - Mar 9 by baxterbasics |
The 'about' section gives a bit of info about the inspiration, purpose and values of the site and the creator himself. Always worth checking these things. |
The intention of the site looks well-meaning but that is different from who will be pushing people to engage with the site. With relatively small numbers it's going to be prone to huge biases that proper researchers can control for and mitigate. Essentially unless you get millions of people participating in this it's going to be fairly worthless, despite the good intentions of the creators. | |
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 06:56 - Mar 16 with 409 views | Zx1988 |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 12:04 - Mar 9 by Herbivore |
The intention of the site looks well-meaning but that is different from who will be pushing people to engage with the site. With relatively small numbers it's going to be prone to huge biases that proper researchers can control for and mitigate. Essentially unless you get millions of people participating in this it's going to be fairly worthless, despite the good intentions of the creators. |
Looking at the User-submitted polls is fairly eye-opening as well. Lots of thinly-veiled anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-Labour stuff on there.
Even if it's not being promoted by those sorts of interests, it seems to have already become quite the Reform/Right-Wing echo chamber. |  |
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 08:41 - Mar 16 with 289 views | DarkBrandon |
I dunno. Once people self-select you almost always get entirely unrepresenatative samples.
Like those "retweet for a larger sample size" polls you get on X or wherever, which just circulate amongst people with a very strong opinion about a issue.
Also ... as others have said ... it is very hard to get people to address the tradeoffs in life.
Do you want to fix the potholes? Yes 95%, no 5%.
Do you want to fix social care? Yes 80%, no 20%
Do you support increasing fuel duty? Yes 10%, no 90%
Do you support a charge on people's properties after they die? Yes 20% no 80%
Obviously these are opinion poll type questions and not government bills, but you get the point. |  | | |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 09:39 - Mar 16 with 218 views | EdwardStone |
We live in a Representive Democracy
We elect a representative and then trust that person to legislate for the next few years until term is up
When I get on a bus, I hand my trust to the bus driver to get me to my destination in a safe and timely manner; I don't want 57 wannabes, however well-intentioned, leaning over the driver's shoulder yelling and telling them to change lane, accelerate/brake or even choose a different route
Equally, should I be on a commercial airline flight, I would not want the cockpit crowded with random people pushing buttons, pulling levers and generally doing whatever they wanted
It is a mistake to ask the Great British Public stuff.... for everyone who gives a considered and thoughtful response there is a frighteningly large cohort who participate " for a bit of a larf"
I give you....
The huge number who now list Jedi as their religion on Census forms
Boaty McBoatface
Brexit [Post edited 16 Mar 9:45]
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| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 10:09 - Mar 16 with 160 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 09:39 - Mar 16 by EdwardStone |
We live in a Representive Democracy
We elect a representative and then trust that person to legislate for the next few years until term is up
When I get on a bus, I hand my trust to the bus driver to get me to my destination in a safe and timely manner; I don't want 57 wannabes, however well-intentioned, leaning over the driver's shoulder yelling and telling them to change lane, accelerate/brake or even choose a different route
Equally, should I be on a commercial airline flight, I would not want the cockpit crowded with random people pushing buttons, pulling levers and generally doing whatever they wanted
It is a mistake to ask the Great British Public stuff.... for everyone who gives a considered and thoughtful response there is a frighteningly large cohort who participate " for a bit of a larf"
I give you....
The huge number who now list Jedi as their religion on Census forms
Boaty McBoatface
Brexit [Post edited 16 Mar 9:45]
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I’m torn, on this - I like the aircraft analogy. However, at the same time there’s little evidence of intelligence amongst our political class. And most of them seem to be led by careerism and self interest.
And whilst the public did vote for a self harming Brexit, it was the politicians who led us to it (I.e offering a referendum). And had Blair and Brown accepted the restrictions around immigration after the accession of 10 new countries then maybe the vote would never have happened at all. I guess what I’m trying to say is whilst the electorate is flawed, I’m not convinced the political elite necessarily have out best interests at heart. | | | |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 10:20 - Mar 16 with 144 views | baxterbasics |
| Politically minded folk - an interesting website on 10:09 - Mar 16 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
I’m torn, on this - I like the aircraft analogy. However, at the same time there’s little evidence of intelligence amongst our political class. And most of them seem to be led by careerism and self interest.
And whilst the public did vote for a self harming Brexit, it was the politicians who led us to it (I.e offering a referendum). And had Blair and Brown accepted the restrictions around immigration after the accession of 10 new countries then maybe the vote would never have happened at all. I guess what I’m trying to say is whilst the electorate is flawed, I’m not convinced the political elite necessarily have out best interests at heart. |
There's a balance.
There are flaws in the 'direct democracy' approach which is what is being argued against here. California is an example of where it can go wrong with electorate-proposed initiatives leading to hamstrung government, conflicting instruction like 'lower taxes, but more services please' and the recall option which saw Arnie installed as the Governator.
Switzerland seems to do ok with it though. | |
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