Pirate Party leads Icelandic voting intentions poll Icelandic research outfit MMR's bi-monthly polling has found The Pirate Party is currently the nation's most popular political party. Founded in 2012, Píratar currently has three members in Iceland's Parliament and one on Reykjavik City's council. The party's platform emphasises direct democracy, government transparency at …
Thank you Simon Sharwood for keeping us in touch with whatever the Pirate Party is doing anywhere in the world. This Poll must have given Simon quite a hard on. However, Iceland has a population smaller than Stoke-on-Trent, and would not be in the list of the 20 largest UK towns.
In Germany the Pirate Party was a genuine political force until they actually entered Parliament:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/pirate-party-in-germany-loses-popularity-amid-growing-problems-a-851864.html
And the Party was wiped out in Europe, save for the strange Ms. Reda, their only remaining MEP.
It would seem that a manifesto of "stop telling me off for stealing" is not an inspiring vision for society, and in the end privacy is too important to be left to adolescents.
In Germany the party was taken over by the "antifa" - violent left wing nuts, and imploded. The topics remain relevant, however. Hopefully there will be another party picking them up.
Btw: In what way is "eternal copyright" an inspiring vision for society?
We all know that even the current 70 years are already bullshit, pushed through by a certain lobby group to avoid losing the copyright on Micky Mouse. Oh, and of course home taping already killed the music industry back in the 70s, right?
@chairo
It's Death plus 70 years on UK copyright.
Us science types who slaved hard at Uni and had to attend more than 3 hours of lectures a week get a sensible 20 years on our work.
Let's not forget Cliff's law (Cliff Richard the Police investigatory subject :) ) where 60s sound recordings suddenly had their life extended under heavy bribery lobbying by the Music Monopolies from 50 to 70 years absolute.
I can invent a cure for cancer and get a maximum of 20 years (usually 10 years after clinical trials etc) earnings but if I write a song about my discovery then I get death plus 70 years which ironically will be longer thanks to my cancer cure discovery.
No matter Iceland's size, to me the fact that a sovereign nation currently considers The Pirate Party the best option is notable. as someone who makes content for a living, I struggle with some of the Party's positions. But I've also read its policies in Australia and find they make mainstream political parties appear even more mealy-mouthed. Beneath the silly surface, there may be some substance
Goodness, is it already Talk Like a Pirate day?
I agree with the author, parties with non-establishment manifestos are a healthy sign, even if they live on volcanic, sparsely populated rock piles. It will be interesting to see how some of the other smallish parties fare in upcoming European elections.
Personally, I'm voting for the "Let's Extract, Feather and Tar Incumbent Excrement" party or LEFTIE, even though I am anything but
"However, Iceland has a population smaller than Stoke-on-Trent, and would not be in the list of the 20 largest UK towns."
Relevance? The whole UK is fly droppings when compared to China, but I'm still not touting Chinese political party system. (though I wouldn't glorify the UK parties either)
"It would seem that a manifesto of "stop telling me off for stealing" is not an inspiring vision for society, and in the end privacy is too important to be left to adolescents."
They have an English section in their website and their manifesto (not your imaginary one) states that "Pirates are not against copyright, but it is obvious that it needs to be updated."
Are posting AC because you just want to troll or are you just gormless?
> (though I wouldn't glorify the UK parties either)
Damn right.
Even with the last election resulting in a coalition, and some likelihood this one will too. The Great British traditions ensure the junior members of the coalition spend their terms playing the role of toast rack "a hot scone burning their cheeks with shame" (to quote Blackadder III).
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I think you might have just solved the problem of how to overturn the patent system. I'm sure any decent composer could set that legalese to a catchy tune.
Method and apparatus for producing rounded corners... doo dah, doo dah!
How can the pollster say it's not a rogue poll? Margin of error on normal UK polls (using 1,000 people) is about 3%. That's 3% on both major parties, so you'll get normal variation in leads of up to 6%. i.e. if both parties are really on 30%, you'll normally get results of that, but every few polls you run will give a different figure - and every 20th (ish) poll will give you quite a big error.
Slo if one poll shows a sudden movement, it's meaningless until other polls have come along to confirm the data.
I don't know the margin of error on Icelandic polls. But the smaller the sample size, the more chance of randomness.
Polls in Iceland usually have a sample size of around 1,000 people, the same as in most countries I'm told. Apparently sample sizes bigger than that don't give a much better margin of error. I'm not a statistician so I don't know that for sure but considering that sample sizes are similar in Denmark and Sweden as well there's probably something in that.
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