This is an absolutely fucking tragedy. People with no money voting for people who wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.
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Haven’t read the report yet however, I think it reflects what has already been said - ageing homeowners have switched to voting conservative (so qualify as low income because on pension for example, but have fewer outgoings). I think young workers on low incomes are still in the main voting labour.
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Yes, that’s probably right…
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Anything to make it harder to vote under the guise of electoral reform is the name of the game, you just have to look at what happens in the States.
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That’s right. You just have to look at the States. Make sure to not look at all the other countries where voter ID can be required without outcry.
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Liverpool Labour’s own version of " The Night of the Long Knives".
Such purges very rarely end well. 
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Here is the peerless Marina Hyde on voter ID
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It’s just not accurate to say it’s virtually non-existent. Firstly, most allegations of voter fraud (specifically personation) cannot proceed due to insufficient evidence. The inability to identify the offender being the chief reason. Those are just from the potential offences that the police are made aware of.
Even so, there have still been hundreds of instances of personation in the last ten years where the offender has been given a police caution rather than being prosecuted.
The recommendation for voter ID has come from the Electoral Commission which followed on from Labour introducing Individual Electoral Registration in 2009.
It will be easily obtainable and will be free. The Electoral Commission estimated it would cost the government between £1.8m and £11m per year depending on the system introduced. That’s a small price to pay for providing greater confidence in the integrity of our elections (surely a good thing?).
Introducing voter ID will also be the first step towards online voting, which will ultimately make voting even more accessible and convenient for millions. Rather than disenfranchising people this will do the opposite, whilst improving confidence in our electoral process and being better able to actually identify malpractice and undue influence where it occurs.
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As voting is a fundamental right, as such for me there should be no cost in meeting the requirement.
Government therefore should pay for free photo ID for all.
If it’s not prepared to do that, then accusations motives will be brought into question.
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You should be reassured then because voting ID will be freely obtainable, most likely from your local council.
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And far, far, far more susceptible to much more sinister manipulation of our democracy, through interference by antagonistic nation states.
Thank goodness Brexit will have made us geopolitically irrelevant by then.
I don’t really have an objection if they make it free. The reports I had read never mentioned this (indicating cost being a barrier).
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The Queens Speech of 2019 specifically mentioned that the photo ID would be available free of charge. Curiously the Queens Speech just gone does not mention cost but it is commonly understood that this commitment to providing the ID free of charge remains. I’m sure it will be re-confirmed that is the case shortly if there remains any confusion.
I would also object if there was any cost involved.
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The problem is that already downtrodden, poor people trying to keep their heads above water will simply not bother. And that’s probably why this appeals to Tories.
They’ll bother to go along to their local polling station to vote in elections but not if it means also “bothering” to first sort out a free photo ID that can then also be used as proof of ID for other transactions where ID is needed in the absence of having a driving licence or passport?
If they’re that apathetic that they would consider this to be an insurmountable inconvenience maybe the problem is that they’re simply not engaged enough in politics?
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I thought they were all voting for the Conservatives now anyway according to an earlier post?
If you can’t / won’t prove who you are (based on ID being free) in order to vote, are you sufficiently engaged in society to have a vote? As you must be on the electoral roll, you must have an address QED you can get ID. If ID is free, it’s a benefit for a huge number of things. I’ve needed my drivers lic, passport and utility bill several times in the past week for various things. It’s just a fact of life. You can’t even go to our local tip without ID currently.
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Peston’s fucking lost it
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I think the issue is that they are not already going to their polling station to vote. It’s a struggle to get people to vote, and the voting rate is declining. This would be a further barrier to voting, and I suspect the voter turnout would shrink from the approx 60% you get now to below 50%, and with that comes serious questions about the legitimacy of any government.
But I’ll go back to my earlier point. There is no evidence of in person voter fraud. You can say there might be, but every investigation has concluded there isn’t. This would be an expensive scheme that would further discourage voting, to solve a problem that we’re not sure even exists, and probably doesn’t.
I don’t see the point.
On the other hand, there is evidence of certain ‘irregularities’ in postal voting, largely through the private sector postal voting suppliers run by prominent conservative donors. The government seem unwilling to investigate this. Wonder why?
It’s literally part of the Electoral Integrity Bill.