Rupert Moss-Eccardt
9.2K posts
Rupert Moss-Eccardt
@rm113
IT Consultant. Liberal Democrat. Material published and promoted by me at 7, Prickwillow Road, Queen Adelaide, CB7 4SH
Queen Adelaide Katılım Eylül 2009
268 Takip Edilen399 Takipçiler
@HonsCupboard Thank you. Your taxes were put to good use.
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Morning all.
As most of you know, my last role in the job was as a Detective Sergeant. Well, today I had to utilise some of my DS skills.
Got a call from a chap claiming my Sky broadband had been hacked. But, I knew it was a scam as we don’t have Sky. I’ve not lost it.
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@HannahIamthest1 I knew him when he moved to our village in Norfolk!
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I served as a Staff Car Driver in the RCT. My best job was Driver/ Bodyguard to the Brigade Commander, 39 Inf Bde in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Brigadier 'Dickie' Gerrard-Wright was one of my charges. I drove him around the Province for 2 years. An absolute gentleman. A 'boots' officer, not a 'shoe' officer. He gave me his epaulettes as a souvenir when he left Norn Iron. We, his crew, would have died for him. His sense of fun was well-known and he was respected by both sides of the Troubles. We kept in touch when I left the army and joined the RUC. I have a special place for him in my 'Hall of Fame' at home.
Oh and he stopped me being Court Martialled for calling a Colonel a coward.
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@PhilRodgers Of course the address doesn't have to be the home address but if they are not having an agent then having another address might be hard.
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@rm113 There's nothing in the summary to suggest that that will change - indeed the requirement for a digital imprint is being extended to third party campaigners spending less than £10,000.
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Summary of planned changes to election law. The biggest change is votes at 16, but there are many other changes. Automated registration could eventually have quite an impact in Cambridge. aea-elections.co.uk/aea-representa…
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@PhilRodgers Will they still need to give an address on the imprint?
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Other changes - voters won't be included in the open register (used by junk mail companies) unless they choose to be. Candidates acting as their own agents will no longer have to publish their home address. Nominations will close at noon instead of 4pm.
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Can somebody explain? What are these 'polling booths' people are talking about. I've been voting for four decades and all I've ever had to use is a sort of three-armed arrangement with a small flat surface and a couple of feet of partition.
Is that what is meant?
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@KateWilton1 @EarthDetect Polling agents even get to attach their own seals to the ballot boxes.
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@rm113 @EarthDetect I must have done 20 plus elections staff duties in the past, including Presiding Officer. 1/families frequently come in together. 2/ I’ve never experienced or even heard of observers who had permission to enter the polling station. Only voters, official election staff and police.
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Insomnia posting here but I’ve done election duties in the past too many times to count, both poll clerk and Presiding Officer and I’m calling bullshit. For one thing election volunteers are not allowed inside polling stations only outside so how could they see anyone voting?
Adam Boulton@adamboultonTABB
Democracy Volunteers appear to be an organisation set up by two academics with an interest in election conduct, Ben Sharpe & Harry Busz. DV volunteers have been given official observer status in a number of countries including. UK.
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@SamCoatesSky The second sentence in your original post is incorrect. Perhaps you should fix that to give the report more credence.
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🔥Angry Manchester council hit back at Democracy volunteers
COUNCIL STATEMENT ON VOTING:
A spokesperson for the Acting Returning Officer said: "Polling station staff are trained to look out for any evidence of undue influence on voters. No such issues have been reported today.
"If Democracy Volunteers were so concerned about alleged issues they could and should have raised them with us during polling hours so that immediate action could be taken. We have operated a central by-election hub which was has been rapidly responding to reported issues during the day, in liaison with the police - who had a presence at every polling station - where necessary.
"It is extremely disappointing that Democracy Volunteers have waited until after polls have closed to make such claims."
Sam Coates Sky@SamCoatesSky
👀The Electoral Commission give Democracy Volunteers access to polling stations at election time. Only they and the police can go inside. They’ve just issued this report about “family voting” in Gorton and Denton: Democracy Volunteers deployed four accredited election observers across the Gorton and Denton Westminster Parliamentary By-election today. The team attended 22 of the 45 polling stations in the constituency, spending between 30 and 45 minutes in each. The observers worked in pairs using the international standard for election observation - the four eyes principle. Each team assessed several aspects of the polling process, from accessibility to issues around the integrity of the vote. Staff were welcoming to the team and we would like to thank them for their time in accommodating our work. The team assessed two significant aspects of electoral integrity - family voting (where two voters either confer, collude or direct each other on voting) which breaches the secret ballot. The team also assessed the impact of the requirement for voters to show ID before they are issued with a ballot paper. 2023 saw the enactment of the Ballot Secrecy Act, which made the practice of family voting more clearly a breach of the secret ballot, making it more enforceable by staff in polling stations. Signage is now available to discourage the practice. Signage was only seen in 45% of the polling stations observed. The observer team saw family voting in 15 of the 22 polling stations observed, some 32 cases in total, nine cases in one polling station alone. The team observed a sample of 545 voters casting their votes - meaning 12% of those voters observed either caused or were affected by family voting. Commenting John Ault, Director of Democracy Volunteers said; ‘Today we have seen concerningly high levels of family voting in Gorton and Denton. Based on our assessment of today’s observations, we have seen the highest levels of family voting at any election in our 10 year history of observing elections in the UK.’ ‘We rarely issue a report on the night of an election, but the data we have collected today on family voting, when compared to other recent by-elections, is extremely high.’ ‘In the other recent Westminster parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby we saw family voting in 12% of polling stations, affecting 1% of voters. In Gorton and Denton, we observed family voting in 68% of polling stations, affecting 12% of those voters observed.’ The team also observed cases of voters being turned away, however, in each case this was due to them not being a registered voter for Westminster elections, such as having EU citizenship, and only being allowed to vote in local elections. The team also saw a number of voters taking photographs of their ballot papers and one voter being authorised to vote despite them already having been marked as voted earlier in the day. Democracy Volunteers has informed elections staff at Manchester City Council about our findings today. This Statement is now available on the Democracy Volunteers website HERE. --
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@EarthDetect @KateWilton1 And the Candidates, Agents and Polling Agents. Polling Agents are very rarely appointed in England.
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@KateWilton1 The election observers are allowed in the polling station as well as police.
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@GNRailUK Morning! The 230V sockets in the front carriage of the rear half of the 0946 from Ely to KGX appear not to be working. Carriage 62 120
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@SamCoatesSky Polling agents, candidates and election agents can also go inside polling stations.
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👀The Electoral Commission give Democracy Volunteers access to polling stations at election time. Only they and the police can go inside. They’ve just issued this report about “family voting” in Gorton and Denton:
Democracy Volunteers deployed four accredited election observers across the Gorton and Denton Westminster Parliamentary By-election today. The team attended 22 of the 45 polling stations in the constituency, spending between 30 and 45 minutes in each.
The observers worked in pairs using the international standard for election observation - the four eyes principle. Each team assessed several aspects of the polling process, from accessibility to issues around the integrity of the vote.
Staff were welcoming to the team and we would like to thank them for their time in accommodating our work.
The team assessed two significant aspects of electoral integrity - family voting (where two voters either confer, collude or direct each other on voting) which breaches the secret ballot. The team also assessed the impact of the requirement for voters to show ID before they are issued with a ballot paper.
2023 saw the enactment of the Ballot Secrecy Act, which made the practice of family voting more clearly a breach of the secret ballot, making it more enforceable by staff in polling stations. Signage is now available to discourage the practice. Signage was only seen in 45% of the polling stations observed.
The observer team saw family voting in 15 of the 22 polling stations observed, some 32 cases in total, nine cases in one polling station alone. The team observed a sample of 545 voters casting their votes - meaning 12% of those voters observed either caused or were affected by family voting.
Commenting John Ault, Director of Democracy Volunteers said;
‘Today we have seen concerningly high levels of family voting in Gorton and Denton. Based on our assessment of today’s observations, we have seen the highest levels of family voting at any election in our 10 year history of observing elections in the UK.’
‘We rarely issue a report on the night of an election, but the data we have collected today on family voting, when compared to other recent by-elections, is extremely high.’
‘In the other recent Westminster parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby we saw family voting in 12% of polling stations, affecting 1% of voters. In Gorton and Denton, we observed family voting in 68% of polling stations, affecting 12% of those voters observed.’
The team also observed cases of voters being turned away, however, in each case this was due to them not being a registered voter for Westminster elections, such as having EU citizenship, and only being allowed to vote in local elections.
The team also saw a number of voters taking photographs of their ballot papers and one voter being authorised to vote despite them already having been marked as voted earlier in the day.
Democracy Volunteers has informed elections staff at Manchester City Council about our findings today.
This Statement is now available on the Democracy Volunteers website HERE.
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Indonesia
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@johnelworthy @CambsNewsOnline Alas! The post suggests the leak was via CambsNews when, actually, quite the opposite occurred.
As to the substance, it is odd that Ben's Yard went ahead if the business model was that weak. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained!
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EXCLUSIVE: Confidential Ben’s Yard Ely report leaked online via @CambsNewsOnline cambsnews.co.uk/news/bens-yard…
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@AndrewLBC1 @Rothmus If Halon is set up right, it is survivable.
But combustion products can be fatal. And, running around immediately after release which causes a fog can be dangerous.
Existing respiratory conditions can be exacerbated which can lead to harm/death.
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@TrainLifeGB We have enough metro stock to run the formations required and very limited berthing stock after the arrival of 13 class 377s from GTR
We plan to keep 16 466s ufn and use a maximum of 11 per day on the busiest days of the week
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Blimey! Paddington to Cardiff on a 387...GWR scraping the barrel
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@Ferdinand641 @Iromg @SonyUK @currys This doesn't need to be about guarantees- which are in addition to consumer rights. If the goods aren't of merchantable quality then the merchant has to rectify matters
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When you pay £1400 for a Sony Bravia TV you don’t expect it to stop working after two years. You would also think that @SonyUK would fix it for free. But they want us to pay for their shoddy goods. Unfortunately @currys aren’t any better. Customer service shambles all round. We shan’t be buying from them EVER again.
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@CopMoustache @Happy_Tuesday1 Why have named candidates at all?
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@Happy_Tuesday1 But what if that person switches to a party who’s ideology you do not agree with ?
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Ok, first rule when I’m in power
Any MP who switches to another party has to immediately resign as an MP
Then stand for reelection in that same constituency under their new party against other candidates, if you feel that strongly about it give the public the choice
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@CopMoustache @Happy_Tuesday1 So you would ban 'independents'?
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@ReemAmirIbrahim So no police on the railways and nobody to stop nuclear waste or fuel being stolen?
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If I were in No. 10, here’s what I’d do👇
— A Great Repeal Act - scrap all laws since 1997
— Abolish DCMS (~£8bn)
— Scrap the triple lock + means-test pensions to <£1m wealth (~£40bn)
— Withdraw funding to hundreds of quangos (~£350bn)
— Repeal the Town & Country Planning Act
— Abolish subsidies
— Abolish minimum wage (like Sweden!)
— Replace the NHS with social health insurance model (Netherlands-style)
— Simplify benefits - 1 disability benefit + 1 unemployment benefit
— Introduce school choice - voucher system & no catchment areas
— Radical tax simplification - broader base, lower rates
— Unilateral free trade - scrap all tariffs & quotas
That would be a good start.
(PS: don’t worry, I have zero political ambition. taxation is theft & politicians are lizards).
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