The way the electoral roll is managed varies from place to place.

Avoiding automatic voter registration tends to favour the more traditionally conservative demographic; it’s racist and classist, but the people who turn up to vote on local electoral issues are too, by and large. It requires engagement to change.

Believe it. Of the eligible electorate, 20% cast a vote for Labour, who wound up with two thirds of the House.

That’s not how legal jurisdiction works in the EU. Member states are still sovereign; if you’re liable for something in France and you get off a plane in Germany then France still needs to ask Germany nicely, and sans an extraditable conviction nothing is likely to come of it.

He’s not smart enough. More like the Grand Negus.

Led By Donkeys is about five years old. I don’t think that in that period there was a non-Tory government for them to mock, was there?

It does rather sound like proposing an immediate 25k hike in house prices, yeah.

Experience. For what it’s worth, the instinct I distrust is absolutism.

I think it’s like the distinction between art and obscenity; it’s not a nuanced distinction in the case in question. If it were, I’d largely trust UK courts to get it right (they are by-and-large capable of this, and much less politicised than their US counterparts).

I think unqualified freedom to say anything can lead to negative utility, pragmatically speaking. Malicious lies bring less than nothing to discourse.

I’m concerned that the libel system can be abused, of course; and I don’t approve of arresting octogenerians under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for shouting “nonsense!” at Jack Straw. But I don’t see there being a need to draw a distinction between online and in person speech, and I think that incitement to riot isn’t something I’d typically defend.

Having said that: I hope the woman in question (who has a history of being a deniable pot-stirrer) gets a trial rather than copping a plea, because the bounds of these things are worth testing.

In which case, perhaps unqualified “freedom of speech” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

(I appreciate that Chomsky’s opinion resonates more with 1968 than now.)

Have you seen pictures of the sub? What makes you think the wiring was all hidden?

Came here to mention laser cooling; glad someone else got there first.