This sounds like a crazy question: but should the government introduce measures that require certain groups to pay if they wish to vote? One would hope that most people would answer “no”. But the reality is that requiring Photo ID is exactly the same as asking some people to pay to vote. Imagine two sets of queues at a polling station: one requires you to wait an hour in line, the other just 30 seconds. Now, allow people born between…
Home ownership – the issue that could eventually bring the government down? So, in the good old days there was a Left Wing party (which emphasised government action to minimise income differentials) and a Right Wing party (who preferred a less active state). But then a few things changed. Firstly, there was a (perhaps temporary) consensus about economics and the role of the state. And then there was “the culture wars”. Simply, (and completely simplifying) this was the idea that…
The perception and the reality France – the country of Pasteur, Marie Curie, Descartes, and Pascal – has a problem with vaccine hesitancy. Their own President, in a bizarre moment of self-harm, decided to declare the Oxford/Astra-Zeneca vaccine as “quasi-ineffective” for older people. Add this to long-standing issues with skepticism about vaccines generally, and you have a recipe for a country that is going to struggle to get jabs into arms – potentially resulting in France never being truly free…
Pic YouTube The COVID equivalent of the WW2 Manhatten Project Just fourteen weeks ago, at the beginning of November, there was scepticism from many about whether a Covid vaccine would be possible, even given the low bar (50% efficacy against moderate symptoms) set by the World Health Organisation and the FDA. And even if one of the vaccine candidates did work, could it be produced in volume? Since then, we have seen a few things happen in vaccine land. The…
Arguably the most significant science development of the last half century It’s always hard to know how the future will judge the present. Events which utterly dominated government policy and public discourse can be forgotten in a matter of years. Other events were passed by almost unnoticed at the time, and yet – in retrospect – seem incredibly important. So, here goes. 2020 and 2021 will be seen as a turning point. They will be considered watershed years: Before CV…
(This is the first of several posts this week in which prominent PBers give their predictions for the New Year – if you would like to join them please get in touch – MS) I think sometimes one needs to take a step back and make some reasonably wild predictions. Now, I doubt all, most, or perhaps any of these will come true. But that’s not necessarily the point. These are to stimulate debate, and hopefully I’ll get bragging rights…
US Election Day (which is, I suppose, a misnomer given most votes have now been cast) is just five days away. Here – in order of reporting – are the first five of the ten counties punters need to watch in order to correctly estimate the likely election result. Dixville Notch – Tuesday about 5:05am UK timeFirst in the nation to report (probably). There will be seven to ten votes cast. Last time around, Clinton got 4, Trump 2, Romney…
The North Carolina Board of Elections is great: they give you turnout by day, by type (mostly in person early voting), by gender and by party affiliation. This means you can compare the numbers to four years ago (when North Carolina also had an awful lot of early voting), and can draw some interesting conclusions. So, here they come: Turnout is up – and it’s mostly in person early voting. At this stage in 2016, 1.6 million people had voted early…