drgwalkden

Not sure about best, but my least favourite dinosaur is definitely the Conservative party.

We believe High Frequency Trading (HFT) to be bad because at its heart it fundamentally relies on information asymmetry (HFT participants rely on having a timing advantage over other market participants). As a party that believes that information should be open and freely available to all, we think that financial markets should also rely on information being equally available to all participants. Additionally, there is no evidence to show that there is a 'market-making' benefit to the market as a whole by the presence of HFTs. A Robin Hood Tax would potentially remove the ability of HFTs to profit by imposing a cost (the tax) which is larger than the small profits which they make on each trade currently. On the other hand, it would not discourage long-term market participants as it would be a very small proportion of their expected profits.

We can understand where Brand is coming from: we're massively frustrated with the way politics is played in the UK, too. The difference is that we've decided to try to change the game rather than give up on it. It's a shame that it'll be young people who follow his advice: there's nothing wrong with the older generation, but of course they have their own interests at heart to some extent, just like everyone else. Hopefully young people who agree with Brand's message of disillusionment will see that there are alternatives out there, rather than sitting and waiting for the revolution to happen.

We've got a fundraiser at http://www.pozible.com/project/180266. If you pledge £20 you get a T-shirt and acknowledgement on the website. Since we don't get any of the money unless we break the £5,000 mark, you could make the difference between £5,000 and £0!

2% is still enough to get a few seats, and things can still change, since polling is not infallible. That said, other countries are not experiencing the same decline: polling is up in Sweden (although not to the bubble levels of 5 years ago, which was more due to timing of the Pirate Bay trial), as it is in other countries like the Czech Republic (6.5%) and Slovenia (4%).