When Will It All Go Wrong For The Tories/ Johnson?

[nw1]

What next? Change our currency also?

Of course. The decimal pound is, well, decimal and therefore foreign, suspect and subversive.

Back to the old days of five-and-three-eighths groats in a penny, and fourteen-and-four-ninths pennies in the pound!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Does any remember those Rexine school ruled exercise books with red covers that had a list of arcane measurements on the back cover, such as rod, pole and perch?

 

[jfollows]

Does any remember those Rexine school ruled exercise books with red covers that had a list of arcane measurements on the back cover, such as rod, pole and perch?

No.
But I was taught 1,760 yards in a mile in my primary school (Lower Park in Poynton) whereas my brother who is 2 years younger than me wasn't. I was born in 10/61 whereas he was born in 12/63.
EDIT And I only knew about chains when I started reading railway working timetables, in about 1977.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I agree; of particular value are the labels in my local supermarket which are probably required but may be in response to customer demand in which most items are both priced and come with a "pence per kg" price. Of course if the latter were changed consistently to "groats per ounce" then it wouldn't matter, as long as the comparison could be made. I'm sure many of us know that it's often the case that smaller items can be cheaper than larger ones, so buying a number of smaller packets can work out cheaper than one large packet, and the pricing labels are very helpful here.

I was wondering if anyone would mention the groat, as that coin appears still be a known item, often quoted. The Double Florin, a silver coin with a value of four shillings, was in use up to 1890.

 

[JamesT]

Labour also achieved more votes in 2017 than in their 2001 landslide.

The population of the UK increased by over 7 million in the intervening time. Comparisons of absolute numbers of votes isn’t terribly useful.

 

[jfollows]

Bonus points for the Tory Brexiteer demonstrating his lack of knowledge on a subject that's close to his heart, as the US imperial measurements are different to those formerly used in the UK, and that a large part of US business is now working solely in metric because the rest of the world does.

He's a twit, but a useful one for Boris and his tribe.
I was completely confused when I went to live in the USA until I worked out that our fluid ounces are the same, but we have 20 fluid ounces in a pint whereas the US has 16 fluid ounces in a pint. Which then feeds through into quarts (which only the US uses, primarily for large bottles of alcohol) and gallons, which are important in calculating car fuel economy. Leading to the observation that the Imperial Gallon is one of the few things larger than the US equivalent. And also leading to the only possible sensible conclusion that only metric really makes sense.

 

[brad465]

The population of the UK increased by over 7 million in the intervening time. Comparisons of absolute numbers of votes isn’t terribly useful.

Yes this is something a lot of hard Corbyn supporters can't grasp, they claim he had got more votes than Blair on 2 occasions, and more than Brown and Miliband, but can't seem to notice that it was not the highest number of votes a single party obtained. In the US the same was said by Trump supporters and some analysts, where he got more votes in 2020 than 2016, but as Biden got more votes and the electoral college did actually swing more in Biden's favour this time, Trump lost.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

No.
But I was taught 1,760 yards in a mile in my primary school (Lower Park in Poynton) whereas my brother who is 2 years younger than me wasn't. I was born in 10/61 whereas he was born in 12/63.
EDIT And I only knew about chains when I started reading railway working timetables, in about 1977.

I see that you were born in 1961. I was born in 1945 and in 1961, I was starting my final year in the Upper Sixth at St Bede's College, Manchester.

Isn't a chain the accepted length of a cricket pitch (22 yards).

 

[Busaholic]

Does any remember those Rexine school ruled exercise books with red covers that had a list of arcane measurements on the back cover, such as rod, pole and perch?

Yes, and you've inadvertently spoiled my late breakfast by reminding me!

 

[jfollows]

It's true that a cricket pitch (wicket to wicket) is 22 yards or a chain, but I only noticed the latter later in life, I always think of it as "22 yards" rather than "one chain".
The whole thing stinks to me of pandering to people who think of the "good old days" and that life in 1955 was perfect whereas today it's dreadful.
I don't subscribe to this in any way, my life is immeasurably better today than it was in the past, and that continues, even though I get older and I suffer from illness as a result, or whatever. Life is about looking forward and thinking about how to make things better for everyone, and not about looking back and moaning about how good things used to be. Which they weren't.

 

[Busaholic]

It's true that a cricket pitch (wicket to wicket) is 22 yards or a chain, but I only noticed the latter later in life, I always think of it as "22 yards" rather than "one chain".
The whole thing stinks to me of pandering to people who think of the "good old days" and that life in 1955 was perfect whereas today it's dreadful.
I don't subscribe to this in any way, my life is immeasurably better today than it was in the past, and that continues, even though I get older and I suffer from illness as a result, or whatever. Life is about looking forward and thinking about how to make things better for everyone, and not about looking back and moaning about how good things used to be. Which they weren't.

Absolutely agree with you. I grew up with rationing for many things still being in place, plus being clothed in 'cast-offs', which together have meant I still cannot abide charity shops/jumble sales/boot sales and have a very uneasy relationship with chocolate, preferring to avoid it altogether rather than 'binge' on it, which is the alternative for me. i dimly remember life in 1955 and I was aware that things were getting better in many ways, but life was far from idyllic. Most children were left to their own devices outside of school time and, speaking of devices, there weren't any worth speaking of. TVs weren't widely available and, in my case, even a bicycle wasn't permitted as my older brother had died tragically and my parents were understandably concerned that I might too.

 

[SteveM70]

It's true that a cricket pitch (wicket to wicket) is 22 yards or a chain, but I only noticed the latter later in life, I always think of it as "22 yards" rather than "one chain".

Or to mix decimal and imperial, 10% of a furlong

 

[Typhoon]

Does any remember those Rexine school ruled exercise books with red covers that had a list of arcane measurements on the back cover, such as rod, pole and perch?

Yes, but I think ours were customised by the Education Authority (and I don't think were red) - I even remember the conversion rate between rods, poles and perches.
1 rod = 1 pole
1 pole = 1 perch.

Three words for the same measurement.

On the back of our books, they also had troy weights (which I think is gold and silver) where it isn't 16 (troy) ounces in a (troy) pound, it is something else. I was always thought to be 'good with numbers' but even I thought this was daft!

It's true that a cricket pitch (wicket to wicket) is 22 yards or a chain, but I only noticed the latter later in life, I always think of it as "22 yards" rather than "one chain".

When I started teaching, it was still CSE and 'O' level. CSE Maths had options and we used to teach Money Management and, to the lower ability kids, Surveying, which we could do practically in the school field. We had various equipment including a long string of linked metal links - I am reasonably confident it was a chain in length.
(Why did we teach surveying - I can't remember all the other options, but one was Modern Maths and the ability to take measurements and draw a plan was probably more useful than leaning set theory, matrices and binary.)

 

[jfollows]

Of course, the one thing that was better in 1955 was the quality of our politicians, they were honest and competent and served the country better than the current shower .....
NOT
They were just as bad, maybe in different ways, in the main because they knew they couldn't be found out in ways that today's politicians wouldn't get away with.
Again, things are much better today because we're able to have much better scrutiny over these incompetents and find them out.
Boris is the doom of his party, but many of its members don't realise this or won't or can't do anything about it. They're all hoping that it'll change by the time of the next election, which isn't really all that far away ......

 

[Falcon1200]

Also mentioned in the decidedly more Tory-friendly Sunday Telegraph.

Thanks, I've also noticed that the crown on a pint glass thing appears of the front page of the Mail on Sunday. I do have to agree that the whole thing is nonsensical.

The point is that if you can label things differently it becomes impossible for people to compare. And if retailers can choose the measurement, they can use that to measure different things in the most advantageous measurement for them.

I would simply have made it obligatory to use metric, in all cases, but legal to use imperial as well (not instead of).

 

[The Ham]

It's true that a cricket pitch (wicket to wicket) is 22 yards or a chain, but I only noticed the latter later in life, I always think of it as "22 yards" rather than "one chain".
The whole thing stinks to me of pandering to people who think of the "good old days" and that life in 1955 was perfect whereas today it's dreadful.
I don't subscribe to this in any way, my life is immeasurably better today than it was in the past, and that continues, even though I get older and I suffer from illness as a result, or whatever. Life is about looking forward and thinking about how to make things better for everyone, and not about looking back and moaning about how good things used to be. Which they weren't.

I have no idea about how good or otherwise life in the 1950's was (as it was just a little time before I was even born. However I am fairly sure that I don't want to go back to some past time, as there would almost certainly be issues that I was unaware of.

I like maths and playing with numbers and whilst a base 12 system makes more sense than a base 10 for things like dividing between 2, 3, 4, and 6 (opposed to 2 & 5), Imperial systems appear to change the number each step 16ths, 12 inches, 3 feet, etc. and so make little sense.

Of course I suspect that most teachers, unless forced to teach it, would want to keep it simple and only teach SI units so that teaching science wasn't too much of a change. As such being it back will be pointless and actually make little difference to most people.

Of course, if it were brought back wholesale, the one thing for certain would be companies would take advantage of the change to put up prices (one of the things which people were upset about the previous changes!).

 

[jon0844]

The pint glass and the crown is so ridiculous, but just like groups today saying Europe forced the metric system on us, so too the EU apparently forced the crown to be removed. Those bastards!

Of course, while pint glasses needed the CE marking, they could (and sometimes did) have more. Indeed there are pint glasses with the crown and CE mark, but most pubs buy pint glasses from France which didn't have it. I'm sure they could have added it if any company asked, but - frankly - who gives a toss? What pub or brewery would pay more for something nobody cares about. They order a pint, they get a pint. They drink it.

 

[dgl]

Will be interesting to see just how many business will use imperial measures and how many will see them as stupid and not worth bothering for the few people that would care.
Companies are going to buy the cheapest things available where possible, if a metric item is cheaper they will buy it and given our very small market in the grand scheme of things stuff marked up with imperial measurement will cost more.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Four farthings to a penny
Twelve pennies to a shilling
Twenty shillings to a pound
Twenty-one shillings to a guinea.

 

[43096]

Four farthings to a penny
Twelve pennies to a shilling
Twenty shillings to a pound
Twenty-one shillings to a guinea.

Which is an utterly ludicrous way of organising a currency. Decimal - and SI units generally - is far easier to understand. As another example, temperature using Celsius or Fahrenheit. Celsius is far more logical: 0 = freezing point of water, 100 = boiling point of water.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

If the Tories lose the Tiverton & Honiton by-election it may well send shock waves through the Parliamentary party in view of the swing involved.

Their loss of Wakefield is almost inevitable and could be played down, unless the swing to Labour is huge.

Until the opposition parties work together they won't guarantee overturning the Tories

 

[brad465]

Until the opposition parties work together they won't guarantee overturning the Tories

I think in these 2 by-elections Labour and the Lib Dems are effectively working together, by only campaigning in the one they're most likely to take. I've seen plenty of evidence of Wakefield campaigning from Labour but no evidence of the Lib Dems there, while Ed Davey has visited Tiverton and Honiton, with no evidence of prominent Labour figures visiting the area.

 

[Yew]

But that did not translate into winning that particular 2017 General Election.

indeed, this surely indicates that our voting system is unrepresentative and deeply flawed.

Does any remember those Rexine school ruled exercise books with red covers that had a list of arcane measurements on the back cover, such as rod, pole and perch?

I can't wait to go to Subway and buy my first Cubitlong!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Labour also achieved more votes in 2017 than in their 2001 landslide.

But that did not translate into winning that particular 2017 General Election.

indeed, this surely indicates that our voting system is unrepresentative and deeply flawed.

Well, kinda. That Labour secured a landslide with not much more than 40% of the vote in 2001 shows the electoral system is deeply flawed. But 2017 actually produced (roughly) the electorally correct result (other than the LibDems getting too few seats)

 

[Bletchleyite]

I can't wait to go to Subway and buy my first Cubitlong!

They're only about 10" anyway, aren't they? Though they are sold as 15cm/30cm in most European countries and not with Footlong(tm) as a brand, if I recall.

 

[Typhoon]

Four farthings to a penny
Twelve pennies to a shilling
Twenty shillings to a pound
Twenty-one shillings to a guinea.

One advantage of the change to metric has been that the 'new' currency is still (just about) valid. Although it is unlikely to buy you anything on its own, 1p coins still have value when combined with others and we went decimal half a century ago. The old penny is worth less than half a new penny and the farthing little over 0.1 new pennies so would have no meaningful value. How much longer it will be useful, I don't know; I'm hoping it can survive my life time.

 

[nw1]

Well, kinda. That Labour secured a landslide with not much more than 40% of the vote in 2001 shows the electoral system is deeply flawed. But 2017 actually produced (roughly) the electorally correct result (other than the LibDems getting too few seats)

Or, indeed, any majority government of any colour having absolute power on less than 50% of the vote. I would also quote 1983, 1987 and 2019 as notably "unfair" results in the sense that in each case, a government with very strident views on a range of issues got absolute power on less than 45% of the vote. (Some might also add 1997 to that, but I would not consider the first Blair term as "strident").

I would say the 2017 result is one of the "fairest" in recent times. And it delivered a non-majority government, which I would argue is more healthy. A result that recognised that not all of us think the same. May continued as PM, which was fair enough given the Tories came first, but the other parties and Tory rebels had significant say on matters. A rare example of true democracy, as opposed to "winner-takes-all" pseudo-democracy. And with someone more effective than Corbyn as the leader of the opposition, I suspect it would have been better.

 

[Shrop]

It's heartening to see a good few comments that aren't fully supportive of the present electoral system, and acknowledging that it has flaws. In fact, are there many people on this thread who do support the present archaic system? Of course we know the tired old argument that it's hard to make decisions without a clear majority, however there are times when having this clear majority leads to decisions which smack of a Dictatorship. It would be interesting to develop this discussion about how appropriate people think the present system is (which I suggest is relevant to this thread), and how it might be updated.

We know that the Tories are already scratching around to appease the public after Partygate, by handing out money in a pretty arbitrary manner, and making questionable suggestions about moving away from metric measurements. Perhaps if they were to come up with something more meaningful like electoral reform, while they still have the power to propose it, then even though it risks losing them some seats, it may end up losing fewer for them than simply trotting out the same old negative anti-Labour (and other Party) tirades that they invariably do as the next General Election gets nearer.

 

[najaB]

Will be interesting to see just how many business will use imperial measures and how many will see them as stupid and not worth bothering for the few people that would care.

It seems to have escaped notice by the majority of commenters that the only other major economy in the world which uses Imperial units is also the one that we're desperate to get a trade deal with. Coincidence....?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It's heartening to see a good few comments that aren't fully supportive of the present electoral system, and acknowledging that it has flaws. In fact, are there many people on this thread who do support the present archaic system? Of course we know the tired old argument that it's hard to make decisions without a clear majority, however there are times when having this clear majority leads to decisions which smack of a Dictatorship. It would be interesting to develop this discussion about how appropriate people think the present system is (which I suggest is relevant to this thread), and how it might be updated.

In the times when there has been a Labour Party government with the referred-to clear majority, did they make any movements in terms of any reform to the present electoral system?