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I just did a little experiment with that toy though.

Giving 50% of the vote to one main party and 25% to the other two.

When Labour have 50% of the vote, they win 467 seats.
When Conservative have 50% of the vote, they win 450 seats.
When Lib Dem have 50% of the vote, they win 532 seats.

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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 16:39, archived)

The problem with the lib dem section is that 'when' becomes 'if'.

Not trying to shit on anyone's parade, maybe this will encourage a few people.

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gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 16:44, archived)

I mean "when" as in "when I put those figures into the whatsit there", of course.

But it would be some good propaganda for them. It means a vote for Lib Dem isn't necessarily as wasted as a lot of people seem to think. Actually their biggest enemies seem to be the "others".

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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 16:47, archived)

You've made a lot of good points

I have to say though - there is no such thing as "good propaganda". It seems good when you agree with the message, but it is never good.

How do you fight two heavily financed propaganda machines? That's a tough one. Fighting it with propaganda just perpetuates the shit.

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gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 16:51, archived)

All political material is propaganda.

It's "good" if it gets people to vote for you.

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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 16:52, archived)

Ok, rather than using the word "propaganda", try the eastern bloc term "transparisma"

I find it to be a bit more descriptive - transparent messages to gain power.

If you're going to put all political messages under the propaganda umbrella (even if, let's say for theory's sake, the vast majority of people voted with the exact message you were shouting), then let's differentiate propaganda from transparisma.

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gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 16:58, archived)

Google returns no results for "transparisma".

All political leaflets published by political parties are produced with the aim of convincing people to vote for them. They don't need to be lies as such, they only need to be persuasive in some way. It may simply rely on the audience's general tendency not to be very good at interpreting facts or understanding statistics.

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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:03, archived)

sorry, I don't know how to spell it in cyrillic

I hope that doesn't get in the way of the concept

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gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:07, archived)

I'm just a bit generally disappointed in the propaganda round here at the moment,

they're all of the form "Vote X, because if you vote Y, Z will win."

I'd rather see something more along the lines of "Don't be put off voting X by people who say they can't win."

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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:10, archived)

I live in a different country so my views are just those of an outsider looking in

That being said, Lib Dems in England have an uphill battle. There is no shame in being the underdog.

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gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:14, archived)

Yep, I agree to the tips of my toes

I've been telling Lib Dem organisers to stop banging on about two horse races and make some proper principled arguments. The whole point of being a Liberal is not being a reactionary arsecandle.

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John Q Wagonwheel Spent, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:17, archived)

All three of them are playing the "two horse race" card here at the moment.

It's insane. The latest Labour one tells me that the Conservative candidate is hoping I'll vote Lib Dem. I was kind of under the impression that he'd want me to vote Conservative. But I guess I may as well now, anyway. What are they trying to do here? Make me strategically vote Conservative? I'm sure as hell not voting Labour, because then the Tories will win!

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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:24, archived)

Labour think the Tories want you to split the Labour vote by voting Lib Dem.

Baffling logic thought up by constituency organiser drones. Surely people vote Lib Dem more because they hate both the Tories and Labour, or because they like our policies. Bizarre tactical voting is an illusion.

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John Q Wagonwheel Spent, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:31, archived)

The Tories aren't going to win here

unless almost everyone who voted Lib Dem last time switches parties. The idea that the Tory candidate is rubbing his hands at the thought of people switching from Labour to Lib Dem is completely absurd.

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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:39, archived)

Ooh, isn't this the talking shop.

We've gone all heady and political. I think your estimates of percentage of vote/realistic seat share might be the wrong way round. But don't tell anyone, or they might do one of them 'tactical' votes.

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John Q Wagonwheel Spent, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 16:58, archived)

It's not my estimate.

The BBC did it.

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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:00, archived)

Well, here are some other ones!

Currently it takes:

96,481 votes to elect a single Lib-Dem MP,

44,306 votes to elect a single Tory MP,

26,860 votes to elect a single Labour MP.

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John Q Wagonwheel Spent, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:04, archived)

that's that even geographic spread

The LDs will need 40% of the vote to win compared to Labour's 30% because Labour's support is concentrated in certain areas, however, the difference between 20% and 50% for the LDs is huge because they're spread out all over (really this just exposes how crude the BBCs toy is).

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Wasp Box like a nervous random stranger at a glory hole, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 16:46, archived)

The Guardian toy is quite good

But disturbingly inaccurate. Then again, all polls are.

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John Q Wagonwheel Spent, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 17:00, archived)