New Plan In UK For "Big Brother" Database 178
POPE Mad Mitch writes "The BBC is reporting that Tony Blair is going to unveil plans on Monday to build a single database to pull together and share every piece of personal data from all government departments. The claimed justification is to improve public services. The opposition party and the Information Commission have both condemned the plan as another step towards a 'Big Brother' society. Sharing information in this way is currently prohibited by the 'over-zealous' data protection legislation. An attempt to build a similar database was a key part of the, now severely delayed, ID card scheme."
Good luck... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good luck... (Score:5, Interesting)
European Digital Privacy Directive? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/20
Does GB intend to withdraw from the EU?
If so, the "Big Brother" talk is more than idle literary reference. We can move forward with renaming Britannia to "Airstrip One."
Re:European Digital Privacy Directive? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:European Digital Privacy Directive? (Score:5, Informative)
With a new database the government could get round this by specifying a very broad range of purposes for the data (as Transport For London did with the Oyster card [spy.org.uk]), but that tactic can't be applied to an existing database.
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Information can only be gathered and used for a specified purpose - you can't "reuse" information for purposes other than those for which it was gathered.
Maybe they have a specific purpose - they only need to cstate it - they want to have a broad overview of everyone's behaviour so they can lock them up if their assessment of that behaviour indicates that they may become a future criminal:[Empasis mine]
The government is planning "behaviour orders" for people considered to be at risk of committing a violent crime. The orders, similar in principle to Asbos, would put curfews or other restrictions on potential offenders, who might have no criminal convictions.
The Sunday Times reported that "risk factors" that could lead to a person being subject to an order would include a person's upbringing, "cognitive deficiencies", "entrenched pro-criminal or antisocial attitudes", or "a history of substance abuse or mental health issues".
Link - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6261791.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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None of the major political parties do. I'm sure the majority of the population (oblivious to the benefits) would like to though.
Fixed.
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Right, so a concept which has been around for a few years is instantly judged superior to a data storage method which has proved the most successful for several decades. Hasn't the U.S. government learned anything from the millions its wasted on I.T. projects? New computer system projects always sound good at the start, it's 5 years and many millions of dollars down the
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Wiki is a database, you insensitive clod !
More specifically a Wiki is a database frontend which makes data entry and editing easy, provides automatic versioning, and allows links between articles to make it easy to check related data. As such, it is not "less organised" than any other datab
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You even contradict yourself throughout your post, first you say it's a database then you say it's a database frontend (they're not the same thing you know) and finally you say a Wiki is a collection of tools that are commonly seen on existing wiki sites.
In reality, if you look at http://en.wikip [wikipedia.org]
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I think you're misnunderstanding the root goal of large, lucrative government contracts. Even when these programs fall through, millions (most likely billions) of pounds/dollars have already changed hands. The companies exist to make money, and they lobby the government towards that end--the goal is the money, not the final product. The final project is just a pretext. If Iraq for example falls through and we pull out ent
Re:Civil Rights: USA or Europe? (Score:4, Insightful)
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OK, I give up. I'm a "glass half full" person. Which one am I supposed to choose? :-/
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They both have their good
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IF you took it as established that there were going to be these systematic invasions of privacy and compilations of databases and whatnot...
As is currently being done by organizations within both government and corporate sectors...
Would you rather have this information legally protected and made obscure so only those with government authority or enough money and resources to assemble it themselves have access to this information?
Or commercialized so the rich a
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Europe, hands down, one hundred percent.
Think of the UK as an extra US State. It's not Europe.
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Not for want of trying on the part of the USA. e.g. trying to get Canadians to change their copyright laws.
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oblig. (Score:2, Funny)
The real reason they want to do this (Score:1)
Does this ring a bell? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Does this ring a bell? (Score:5, Informative)
Try going to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/ [imdb.com]
Note that the working title for the film was 1984 and a Half. This puts where it is coming from perfectly.
C'mon (Score:3, Funny)
Scale & Risk (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems perverse that anyone would consider this a remotely reasonable plan.
The article doesn't look at the technical side of doing this at all, but its pretty obvious that todo what they are talking about doing here, it means restructuring the data for hundreds if not thousands of applications that are in use now.
Why is the UK government so gung-ho on these 'MegaIT Projects'?
Lets hope this dosen't get traction, but as with most things 'New Labour', I can only imagine this is signed and sealed now that the public are being made aware
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Is "dosen't" a UK spelling I'm not familiar with?
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Do you have any idea how time consuming it is to replicate the functionality of one database in another? I can easily make some tables and add any structured data to any database, but if you want people to still be able to interact with it in the same way they used to (or a better way), it's typically a project that takes roughly as long as it took to get the original database to the state it's alrea
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I dunno, you seem to kind of biased. At the moment if i move i have to update all the different agencies. Banks, Telcoms, Electricity, Tax offices, Immigration(if needed), Government support ( pensions etc ), voting enrolment.
Now imagine they are all linked and i phone a single number and POOF. All changed at once. I no longer need to remember this. That's just one example. Sure there are disadvantages, like if the database is
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No problem - just send me your bank account details, social security number, name, address, phone number and date of birth and I'll take care of everything. I won't even charge you for the service.
See, it's true - privatising go
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Luckily they aren't suggesting this right now, just that all Government departments should access any data that one of them has stored on me.
Personally I think in theory it's a good idea but in practice its a horrible idea since each department will find and increasing number of reasons to interf
Theory & practice (Score:2)
So this would be like the bank that I moved to, which offered to transfer all my direct debits, salary payments etc. from my old bank account to the new one automatically? The one where they made such a mess of a simple process that after several weeks of grief, I went into my local branch, demanded to see the manager, and sat there while he phoned head office and asked them to stop, please? I then contacted all the organisations invol
Re:Scale & Risk (Score:5, Interesting)
What they do is propose something outrageously distateful, which gets parliament in uproar - while all the time they only planned something merely somewhat distateful. Parliament gets uppity, votes on it, and gets the legislation watered down to the 'somewhat distasteful' level, thinking they've won a victory. Basically, the government proposes the most draconian legislation possible and lets parliament scale it back to something they will accept, which is probably much more draconian than if they had just tried to pass what they wanted to pass in the first place.
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Yes, they've done this repeatedly, most obviously with things like detention without trial, where the 90 days originally requested were scaled back to "only" several times the historical limit and the limit used in pretty much every other first world nation.
It's really odd how this works. It's as if everyone is so used to the government (with its unjustified absolute majority in Parliament) forcing through any legislation they want, no matter how unpopular, that the people making the decisions now conside
organise! (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:organise! (Score:4, Informative)
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Clue for Americans here, we don't revere the Queen as much as you think we do and we def. don't think of ourselves as subjects. We also do not live in quaint country cottages, say 'What ho!' a lot, have 'pea-souper' fog in London anymore or doff our caps every time a horse & carriage goes (rarely) by.
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We don't. Whatever made you think we do?
Remember, most of us didn't even vote for the current administration, and it's only an electoral system so unrepresentative it makes the US collegiate system look unbiased that has allowed Blair and his cronies to remain in power for so long. Reform is long overdue, and this sort of rubbish (combined with unpopular subjects like Iraq, of course) may even be enough of a catalyst to force any party wanting t
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They can try, but I accept no responsibility for the consequences... :-)
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They will start with foreigners. (Score:2)
Once we 2nd class humans in this country are "registered" they can iron out all the details about how they will make this "work" for the indigenous population (people with half a clue knows this is just a waste of money,
Memory Hole (Score:3, Insightful)
The bad thing is, the entire system will fulfill all the requirements of Orwell's "memory hole."
Are all these IT Projects and police cameras actually a secret plot to harness George Orwell's spinning body as the primary power source for the U.K?
I lived in the U.K as a teen and always wanted return later. Now, the thought of returning gives me the creeps.
Winston would be so proud.
Vive la George!
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Don't forget the whole road pricing fiasco, coming to roads near you real soon! The Gov. and legislated to allow Transport for London to charge tolls on major trunk routes around London, but only if they use technologies compatible with the envisaged UK-wide road pricing system - this is a heads up people, it is coming.
Know what this means? GPS transponders, or the like, in your car so the system can tell where you are, and when, and charge you accordingly
25 years early: Britrockers Judas Priest (Score:5, Interesting)
My lasers trace, everything you do,
You think you've private lives, think nothing of the kind
There is no true escape, I'm watching all the time!
CHORUS:
I'm made of metal, my circuits gleam
I am perpetual, I keep the country clean.
I'm elected, electric spy,
I'm protected, electric eye.
Always in focus, you can't feel my stare,
I zoom into you, you dont know I'm there.
I take a pride in probing, all your secret moves,
My tearless retina takes, pictures that can prove.
Electric eye (in the sky)
Feel my stare (always there)
There's nothing you can do about it, develop and expose,
I feed upon your every thought, and so my power grows!
I'm made of metal, my circuits gleam
I am perpetual, I keep the country clean.
I'm elected, electric spy,
I'm protected, electric eye.
I'm Elected - Protected - Detective - Electric - Eye.
- Judas Priest, Electric Eye, 1982.
25 years ago, this was cheesy hair-metal dystopic science fiction.
Sucks to be us.
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Oh yes...
Mega IT projects suck (Score:4, Interesting)
In any event, I agree with the other commentators that this is a pork project more than anything.
UK, US, doesn't matter really (Score:5, Insightful)
The use of the phrase over-zealous
My doctor doesn't need to know what my taxes were, nor does the tax man need to know what speeding tickets I've had. The only probable useful use of this information sharing by the government is to track people of covertly wrong reasons.
I'm pretty certain that the MI5 doesn't need to know how many people reported to the doctor for STD treatments, so what they are tracking is information that they shouldn't be collecting anyway. In spite of the surprisingly vast amount of information about private citizens that is available on the Internet, collating all government owned information about citizens will provide nothing useful in the war on terror or the war against drugs.
In case nobody was paying attention, the attacks in NYC and London were perpetuated by people that either already should have set off security bells, or by people who would not set off security alerts anyway. Creating this type of spying system will not deter terrorists, criminals, or any other group they might claim to be fighting.
Like gun control, if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have them, and if you outlaw privacy, only outlaws will have it.
Its time that governments, especially elected ones, start learning that you don't force peace, but encourage it, protect it and these can only be done WITH the cooperation of citizens, not in spite of their rights or through sacrificing their rights for them.
Sure, they can read and record this and it still won't help them find any subversives. In fact, they will have only wasted money tracking my statements instead of focusing on using currently implemented laws and methods of upholding those laws.
I'm not against sharing data, but when it can be tracked back to individuals it necessarily becomes a kind of evil. Knowing the eating habits of all 37 year old men who have had minor heart attacks can be a very useful set of data, But also knowing their names and addresses, voting records, tax numbers, and what type of car they drive is not necessary to the usefulness of the information.
If this has been announced, rest assured that the implementation phase is already underway.
As has been said, now is the time to make this an election issue. I'm pretty sure that those present at the signing of the Magna Carta would not approve of this. Hmmmmmm
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No, but all the government departments do need to know your address, and whether you are still alive or not. That seems like a use. Tell one government department about a move or a death, and they all know.
Just because there is a common database doesn't mean that the docto
Re:UK, US, doesn't matter really (Score:4, Informative)
We already have an equivalent of the US social security number - the National Insurance number. Your doctor has it, the taxman has it, the benefits office have it. Why can't they just tie that up with an address? That way everyone knows about a change of address, but the taxman still doesn't have to know about that nasty rash you had last year.
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You don't think the government can conceive of a system that shares data more widely than is strictly necessary to achieve legitimate goals? What's the weather like on your planet, I'd like to emigrate? :-)
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No, but all the government departments do need to know your address, and whether you are still alive or not.
I'd be interested to see why all of the following want my address:
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Good grief man, the first parliment was composed of money lenders that collectively were more powerfull than the royalty of the day, if they could understand this system they would love it!
"Like gun control, if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have them"
I live in Australia, when I was a kid in the 60's there were plenty idiots/outlaws with guns posing as ordinary people, nowadays they are virtually ex
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"Suck it up"
Huh? Suck what up? Your hyperbole?
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You do realise that the Magna Carta was an agreement between the King and the most powerful noblemen of the time (later to become organised as Parliament). The only real benefit for the ordinary person was the "right" to have a fair trial.
Britain doesn't have a written constitution, so if the government of the day can get something past Parliament, then that's that. What really bugs me is that the Labour Party we
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Here are a couple of links:
http://www.texasinsider.org/election_watch/Opinion _Jerry_Patterson_1_6_2006_Guns.htm [texasinsider.org]
From the next link:
Both sides cite statistics to bolster their claims.
The author of the only comprehensive study on the issue to date has reached a controversial conclusion that concealed-carry laws transla
"towards" a big brother society? (Score:3, Insightful)
This could be a good thing (Score:2, Insightful)
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The sad thing is that, going by past records, it will probably take a disaster striking the politicians personally for them to realise what a bad idea it is for government to maintain any more data or allow any more access to that data than is absolutely necessary. When MPs and senior civil servants start suffering the problems of identity theft, or losing their jobs/careers/liberty over erroneous (or outright maliciously fabricated) information in the database, maybe they'll get it. Sadly, by then it will
What night is the eviction show? (Score:2)
The machinery of state (Score:2)
I'm a UK citizen and resident. In my experience government departments don't talk to each other and it does lead to problems for everyday people, this would be a valid way of working towards solving that problem. I'm sure our glorious leaders are aware of the benefits it will give them in controlling the population, and I expect they think it's a good idea. IMHO the bureaucracy has become so complex and unwieldy that even it's professional administrators can't keep up.
Of course this is a UK government IT
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Link (Score:2)
The dangers of IT-illiterate politicians (Score:5, Insightful)
In all the arguments about Bush, there have been repreated suggestions that Blair is more intelligent than Bush. I do not think this is so at all. He has superior verbal fluency (he is a barrister, i.e. a talking lawyer.) But all the signs are that in understanding of the modern world, strategic grasp and understanding of the structure of, and problems of, society, he is every bit as blinkered and limited as Bush.
I'm sorry about this rant, but thank you for reading it. Meanwhile, if you _do_ share the misfortune of being English, please do something. Write to your MP. He will probably be a technical illiterate too, so try and spell it out very plainly without using jargon. Gathering all information about citizens into a big central repository accessed by many different groups - police, NHS, Civil Servants - is a recipe for disaster in a country where newspapers buy and sell informants every day. A country that cannot prevent newspapers from illegally tapping telephones, cannot prevent criminals, Ruper Murdoch and Lord Rothermere from gaining illegal access to such a huge centralised database. Until the Government can somehow fix the abuses of the Press and the opportunities for blackmail, they should never consider such a database.
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Yes, well you know Tony would probably consider your 'rant' to be antisocial behavior and arrange for an ASBO to be placed on you to the effect that should you raise your right hand above your waist in a public area you will go to jail without further trial.
Remember, criticising the government is antisocial behavior. I mean you can't get much more antisocial than attacking the government, now can you?
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Given that one of the few places in the UK where it is explicitly illegal to protest is right outside the Houses of Parliament, it seems you're right. :-(
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Why are graphics cards so designed that the heatsink is on the underside when installed in tower cases?
I've thought about that too, the only thing I can come up with is that it prevents dust from settling on them.
Yeah this is offtopic and is a mere meta-comment.
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Orwell failed to mention the bit about off-shoring the data to the cheapest call centre in Bangalore.
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As far as the heaksink sig goes, it's historical. The ATX design means there's not guaranteed clearance on the 'back' side for any kind of heatsink; my motherboard
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I'm lucky - my local MP replies to every letter/fax/email, sends out monthly email 'blogs' of what he's been doing/involved with, has sensible ideas about most things and manages a good grasp of the real issues. He's very active with local issues, actually turns up at meetings, voices his views, goes away, reports back and all that good stuff. He's even able to say 'I was wrong, here'
Who is it? (Score:2)
It's sad, John Butcher died a week or so ago at the age of 60. There was an MP, one of very few, who understood technology and its importance, and even tried to explain why manufacturing was important to Mrs. Thatcher - and he was in the same party. (He was chairman of Texas Instruments UK at one point, I think.) He left Parliament in 1997, which was a pity.
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If that is truly a fair reflection of what a serving MP said in an official communication, then I think you should name the MP publicly.
Sounds like "Yes Minister"... (Score:2)
"the new National Integrated Database: the detailed personal records of every UK citizen, which will be held on computer by the government"
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Cost of Information (Score:5, Interesting)
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Hmmmm, I recently went on a fly/drive holiday to Britain and Ireland during world cup season. My partner and I drove 3500 miles in 5 weeks and stayed in pubs and B&B's. The only "problem" I saw was a couple of kids trying to rip the door of a phone box late at night, I stuck my head out of the window of our room and told them to fuck off, they didn't even answer back, they just ran.
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There are one or two good chains but on the whole, yes, you're right.
>what is the orange stuff on sandwiches and don't tell me it's cheese
Orange? God knows! Especially in a sandwich. Cheese is usually sort of yellow. Oh, it could have been Red Leicester but that's usually a bit more, well, reddish.
Basically, if you had something orange in your sandwich and lived, be happy
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They don't seem to realise that this information already exists, merely spread amongst a number of different governmental departments. This is merely an attempt to consolidate that data and make access more efficient.
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You fail to realize that this is the "slippery slope" that so many people are concerned about. I don't mind the current set of affairs; numerous disconnected databases. It requires little bit of work to consolidate someones data for analysis and this represents a nice speed-bump in the proces
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You have no basis to believe other than speculation that either of the two scenarios you describe would happen at all. You also don't have any evidence other than speculation to say that either of the two scenarios wouldn't happen if these databases weren't combined.
Easier =/= more likely.
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No basis? How about millennia of prior behavior? Governments rarely relinquish power, in the same way taxes are rarely repealed. It's the age old cycle of civilization. More and more power is sought until the system cannot provide any more and
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One would hope.
But you didn't.
Strangely, so is just assuming that it will. You've yet to offer any evidence that this government, here, now, or at any time in the future, will consolidate this database with further surveillance and invasions of privacy, other than vague references to irrelevant historical data of other cultures and civilisations t
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CPR-Register sounds like a goldmine for spammers (Score:2)
It's quite difficult to research this, as I don't speak Danish, but here's one example of how your personal data from the CPR gets sent to potential spammers. If you are happy with this, that's your choice.
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Which means you can buy it in Alaba market, Lagos for Naira 1,000 or a similar value in Roubles in Moscow, but slightly less in Latvia, Lithuania, and slightly more almost anywhere else.
The UK's IT infrastructure leaks data like a sieve, and the more you put in to a sieve, the faster it leaks out.
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Y'know, if you add every government department up, the public sector is one of the biggest single employers in almost any first-world country. Much bigger than any one company. Given the typical government approach to security (one password and you're in to everything), do you really want your
sounds like a libertarian question (Score:2)
We already have that problem - she could work for the tax department.
Perhaps we should fund the government with a method that doesn't require invasive records on every citizen.
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Reducing Fraud and helping people (Score:2)
Look at the election results (Score:2)
Labour 55 35.2
Tory 30.5 32.3
Liberal 9.6 22.0
We don't live under a democratic system, we live under a <a href="http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/uktable.
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And the only party to vote for in order to change this condition is the Liberal (democrats).
They are the only party that are committed to proportional representation. The introduction of PR would do nothing to maintain the Liberals hold over power, but would prevent the other parties from doing so, as they have been doing for generations. Instead we would have a real representation of the peoples wishes. Your table would then read
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An ironic choice of closing comments, perhaps: since you're obviously aware of the turnout issue, it is strange that you assume the same proportion of non-voters would support New Labour as the proportion of voters who do. In my experience (which, as always, I should acknowledge may not be representative) there are tw