openrightsgroup Vote to ask about DEAct, questions to policy chiefs with @38_Degrees: #DEBill #GE2010
So this is how it works.
From 38 Degrees
For example, as of when this was written:-
1,866 votes out of 10,520 Time for the Robin Hood Tax?
Vote for questions like: Will your party support the Robin Hood Tax? It’s a small tax on high value transactions between banks that would raise hundreds of billions of pounds that would be used to fund action against climate change, poverty and other big More...
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This is a list of numbers voted as at time of writing:-
1,299 votes out of 10,520
Climate - what is your party prepared to do?
1,135 votes out of 10,520
Digital Economy BIll - what next?
1,080 votes out of 10,520
Time for proportional representation?
927 votes out of 10,520
Will you ban secret lobbying? 789 votes out of 10,520
Trident - can we afford it?
758 votes out of 10,520
BBC - Will you cut it?
746 votes out of 10,520
Time to regulate the banks?
644 votes out of 10,520
Will you close the gap between rich and poor?
376 votes out of 10,520
Will you care for the elderly?
347 votes out of 10,520
Tuition fees - what's your policy?
289 votes out of 10,520
How do we reduce Poverty?
264 votes out of 10,520
What will you cut?
This tells us a few things.
First the number of votes cast is very small - 10,520.
Also that it is a single issue campaign that people seem to want. Note the tweet that I quote at the beginning. Designed to draw in the like minded on that topic. We don't know whether people do prioritise.
Issue One
In some way the web site doesn't make sense as one could vote for all, or multiple vote for some against others, which would make more sense, that is to score them.
The web site does allow this, that is it accepts multiple votes from the same person, despite that it has a record of the person voting in form of email and post code!
So it seems it is depending on people making a choice, it invites people to chose another topic, assuming that people will only chose a subset, thus creating a natural ranking. But it could be used to create a ranking by multiple votes. It would skew their figures but would be fair, I think.
Issue Two
The actual issues are grouped. This seems reasonable, but one is not asking a specific question so much as asking the interlocutor to address those sorts of issues.
I can't ask "What will you" cut because my own concern is slightly tangential to that which is what they are going to do about government waste, which I see as a corrupting influence on the way we behave. And I certainly don't think that is an easy question to ask either.
Imagine this scenario. A PCT spend some millions of pounds improving a hospital including its A&E, but in reviewing their budget they realise that if the A&E is closed and those facilities amalgamated with another hospital they will save several other millions. So where is the wastage in this, in closing the A&E, some of the recent improvements must be apportioned to that department, or not making the savings by moving the department?
Checking back, "Time for a Robin Hood Tax" still leads. But I don't think I can ask this question either as I am concerned about the broader issues of what is the actual size of the deficit, since the government keeps many borrowings off the books. This is very important because the borrowings are still there, part of government led borrowing, and borrowing to this scale seems to have the potential to be destabilising. Perhaps it is intrinsically unhealthy, it is borrowing against the ability of our children to repay. Is that what we really want?
Another aspect to that issue is that no government that endorses borrowing through an accounting method that is not transparent has the moral authority to regulate the banks (which is a separate question, but my caveat remains) in a sensible manner. In this context "Time for a Robin Hood Tax" is an emotive and otiose question, but if asked allows the real issues to go unanswered.
In this context "Climate, What is Your Party Prepared to do" seems far more important, because it is one where undertaking can be extracting and the party in question can be measured against should the come to power.
At least theoretically.