ALB
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Yes, it seems to be more of a “stablecoin” than the original bitcoin idea as a currency that had nothing to do with the state. Because its price fluctuated so much bitcoin was never really going to be used as an ordinary means of paying for goods and became more a speculative “crypto asset” than a “cryptocurrency” (crypto referring to the blockchain technology it was based on). To work as a means of payment, crypto-cash needs to be stable and tying it to state-issued money (whether a single one such as the dollar or a basket of them as Facebook seems to be proposing) is ta way of doing this. As far as the US-style libertarians are concerned, this — tying a so-called cryptocurrency to state-issued money — must seem a betrayal of their original project. Actually, it represents the failure of their attempt to by-pass the state and its money. What was the point of that anyway?
Robbo, it didn’t take me long to find on the internet two fake-news-busting sites exposing that story about those birds dying in the Netherlands: from a 5G test:
https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/5g-radiation-causes-bird-death-in-netherlands-fake-news
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/5g-cellular-test-birds/
As to the science of the effects, a comrade who’s forgotten his password to here has drawn attention to this:
and, on the geopo9litical aspect mentioned by Marcos, to this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/science/5g-phone-safety-health-russia.html
OK, Imposs, here’s the numbers:
Hastings: 77 out of 24,473
Folkestone & Hythe: 75 out of 32,417
Basingstoke: 155 out of 48,566
Dover: 74 out of 33,523
Reading: 83 out of 40,428
Runnymede: 39 out of 21,062
Southampton: 103 out of 53,847
Oxford: 83 out of 45,141
South Bucks: 15 out of 20, 885
Talking of Oxford, I know of at least one person who voted for us last time and for Labour this time and of two who voted for us both times but in between voted Leave. Make what you will of all that.
Last time in 2014 it was 221 votes (0.56%). This time it’s 83 (0.18%). A huge drop due, in my view, to many of those who voted for us last time wanting to vote Remain or at least against Brexit this time, either Green or even Liberal. Another factor might be that 2014 was pre-Corbyn and some might have voted Labour.
The figures for most of the counting areas (local councils) are now available. They confirm that, although our vote fell nearly everywhere, it fell more in Remain strongholds. The top 5 in percentage terms are: Hastings (0.31), Folkestone & Hythe (0.23), Basingstoke (0.23), Dover (0.22) and Brighton and Reading (both 0.20). Oxford, the capital of Remainia (it voted 67% for the Remain parties), which last time was No 1, is way down at equal tenth with Canterbury and Runnymede.
Hastings and Basingstoke (one of the few places where the number of our votes went up) both voted Leave. Folkestone (where we have put in a lot of work in local elections) and Dover both benefitted from free postal distribution, which suggests that this does increase the numbers voting for us. I haven’t found the figures for Milton Keynes (which voted Leave) or Maidstone (where there was free postal distribution) which might confirm these conclusions.
For the record, the worst place is no longer Surrey Heath (where our vote actually increased from 20 to 29) but South Bucks (where our vote fell from 22 to 15). Its centre is the town of Beaconsfield. Perhaps not surprising as Disraeli when he was granted a peerage chose to be called Lord Beaconsfield.
Robbo, you are such a sucker for conspiracy theories ! The name itself of your source – “Truth Revolution” – should have been a warning that it was completely unreliable(Have a look at their current home page : https://thetruthrevolution.net/how-feminism-tricked-women-into-promescuity-giving-up-their-values/ )
“Global Research” is not quite as bad but is still a conspiracy site, run by the notorious conspiracy theorist, Michel Chossudovsky:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky#Centre_for_Research_on_Globalization
This article should persuade you that you don’t need your tinfoil hat:
Nonsense about the Health Effects of Electromagnetic Radiation
What is worrying is that other members are going along with this nonsense. It is a discredit to our party which has always prided itself on taking a rational, scientific attitude.
I agree that result is no guide as to how people might vote in a general election or another referendum or even to if people want another referendum, if only because of the low turnout. Just commenting on the composition of the UK delegation to the European Parliament.
Now that all the results are in the media are beginning to realise that the EP elections are not the sensational victory for the brxiteers they were saying last night.
The UK has 73 MEPs. Of these only 34 are brxiteers (Farague’s 29 plus 4 tories and I DUP). As all the lead Labour candidates were Retainers all the other 39 were Retainers (16 libs, 7 greens , 3 Scotland nats, 1 Welsh Nat , 1 Sinn Fein, 1 NI alliance party, and 10 labourites).
Farague’s party got 29, only 4 more than Ukip in 2014, the extra 5 at the expense of the tories. That’s not going to stop him proclaiming he won though.
Don’t know what this means from our point of view. Not much probably but it does show that xenophobia isn’t dominant.
A comrade did that for the 2014 Euroelections and I’m sure he’ll do it again for these when all the results are readily available. But it won’t be by Westminster constituency, but by “counting areas” which correspond to the 67 local councils in the area.
I copied a figure down wrong. The result in Brighton was not 103 but 180. Not that bad then. We need to find a way to getting a group going there again.
Forgot to add that there were 13,648 spoilt votes. I saw the ones at Guildford and a lot of them were deliberate protests about the election being held, so if you like votes for Brexit.
At the count in Southampton Mike and me chatted with the Independent candidate Jason McMahon who seemed to have some sympathy with Yaris Varouflakis and the European Spring grouping.
Here’s the full result:
Brexit Party – 915,686
Liberal Democrats – 653,743
Green Party – 343,249
Conservative and Unionist Party – 260,277
Labour Party – 184,678
Change UK – the Independent Group – 105,832
UK Independence Party (UKIP) – 56,487
UK European Party (UKEUP) – 7,645
Jason McMahon (Ind) – 3,650
Socialist Party – 3,505
David Round (Ind) – 2,606
Michael Turberville (Ind) – 1,587
Rather disappointing. I’d expected our vote to go up a bit because there’d be a higher turnout (and not to finish so low down the list). However, the election did turn out to be a proxy referendum (won, by the way, despite what most of the media are saying, by Remain) and we lost out in the same way as Labour did for not taking sides in this.
The areas where we did best last time, Oxford and Brighton, are strong Remain areas and the fall in our vote and share there was dramatic. Down from 221 to 83 in Oxford and from 397 to 103 in Brighton. What this suggests is that a large proportion of those prepared to vote for socialism in other circumstances, faced with a referendum on the EU, opted for Remain. This makes some sense as we would hardly expect them to prefer insular English nationalism.
I should have warned you that the count starts with the verification of the ballot papers, i.e that the number of papers is the same as the number of names ticked off on the electoral register. That takes hours and is deadly boring. The real counting of the votes for each list does not start till this has been in done. In Guildford, where I’m going to start with, this isn’t scheduled till 4pm; which is why I’m not planning to get there till then. If they’ve finished in time for me to get to Southampton before 10pm I will see you there but it will have been a long day for you.
Message from one of our sympathisers in Oxford, who will also be a counting agent for us at the count there this evening:
“For information: in the end the two of us did stalls on 3 afternoons, & I also did 5 or 10 shorter leafleting sessions. Definitely met a few likely voters, but not huge numbers.“
Yes there is some co-relation between from where we get comparatively more replies and university towns. The next on the list was Canterbury at 0.4% (equal fifth with Lewes). On the other hand, the response from Reading wasn’t high up on the list while Hastings isn’t a university town. Maybe it was because it’s the Mugsborough of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and there are some descendants of those Owen convinced to become socialists. More likely because it has a Labour council and we tend to do better in Labour areas. In Oxford we got more votes than the BNP, so we are talking about “socially liberal” places.
