No!alition Government

"Come back, Nick" "NO! I HATE you, you is not my friend no more.... Blahhhh!"

Following the news that the government was dropping proposals for House of Lords reform, Nick Clegg has retaliated by setting his party against proposals to equalise the size of electoral constituencies and reduce their number.

Clegg's toy evacuation from his pram seems justified as he explains that there was a deal; the Tories were to deliver House of Lords reform and the Liberal Democrats were to deliver boundary changes. But there are a few problems with Clegg's position:

1. The boundary changes were not linked to Lords reform. The Coalition Agreement promises an AV referendum followed by boundary changes to equalise constituency sizes. The Tories delivered on the AV referendum despite knowing it was a waste of public money and political time:

We will bring forward a Referendum Bill on electoral reform, which includes provision for the introduction of the Alternative Vote in the event of a positive result in the referendum,as well as for the creation of fewer and more equal sized constituencies. We will whip both Parliamentary parties in both Houses to support a simple majority referendum on the Alternative Vote, without prejudice to the positions parties will take during such a referendum.

2. What's more, the agreement doesn't promise Tory support for Lords reform but that a committee will be set up to consider it and propose a motion:

We will establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation. The committee will come forward with a draft motion by December 2010. It is likely that this will advocate single long terms of office. It is also likely that there will be a grandfathering system for current Peers. In the interim, Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber that is reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election.

3. By scuppering equalisation of constituency sizes, the Lib Dems are condemning themselves and the Conservatives to entering the next election with an even bigger systematic bias to Labour that will make the prospect of a hung parliament much less likely. If things turn round for the Tories there's a chance that another coalition with them will be possible. But I wonder how keen the Tories would be with that idea, especially after today's childish and self destructive behaviour. If UKIP do well, they may well prove to be a more attractive partner - a nightmare for the Europhile Lib Dems. More likely, Labour will win outright. With the current bias caused, in part, by the democratic deficit in the South and a surplus in Northern England and Scotland that the boundary changes would have corrected, all Labour need is a percentage share of the vote in the mid-thirties to win a decent majority - no need for the Lib Dems.
   

The Lib Dem's action today brings coalition government into disrepute. It show's that politicians of different parties can't opporate under an honest interpretation of an agreement and specifically that Clegg's party can't deliver grown up government - a shocking situation for a party that dreams of introducing an electoral system (PR) that would make coalition government the norm, not an exception.

With the Conservatives likely to lose the Corby by-election to Labour following Louise Mensch's resignation, Lib Dems must be praying for further Tory to Labour seat transfers before the next election. A shift in parliamentary arithmetic may allow them to jump ship into a Lib/Lab coalition before they are decimated at the polls. Then they could extract a promise from Ed Miliband to implement PR (presumably without a referendum this time, what with people's opinions being so troublesome an' all).

Today at least, this scenario is looking like the only one where they can continue as an influential political force, no matter how little they seem to deserve it. I hope they reconsider their opposition to fair constituency sizes and rediscover the maturity, bravery and commitment to doing what is best for the country rather than their party, that Clegg demonstrated back in 2010.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Could Cable Be To Cameron What Brown Was To Blair?

PoliticalBetting.com highlights analysis of the parties national share of the vote during Thursday's elections by Rallings & Thrasher. It confirms that the Tories actually had a (slightly) higher vote share than Labour. Given recent opinion polls that regularly gave Labour 6 to 10 point leads, the Tories have got to be pleased with that.

Considering the controversies over the spending cuts, tax rises, the NHS reforms and that the only repository for protest votes against the Con/Lib Dem coalition is Labour, this result is extraordinary and must be very disappointing for Labour. The coalition parties amassed 54% of the votes verses Labour's 37%. It's unsurprising that Lib Dems support dropped significantly from its impressive 2007 level. It is surprising the Tories actually did better than their 2007 result and their 2010. The Lib Dems were always going to have to face up to losing their soft support from the anti-establishment left. Their moderate left of centre support will also be flakey until they are convinced that the path the coalition is taking is correct. That will only happen once the path has been trodden and the results are tangible.

However, if the coalition is to deliver, all parties need to be working together constructively, supportively and with a shared vision of what is to be achieved and how. As I suggested in a previous post, the Lib Dems need to spend less time trying to win back the niche anti-establishment leftists that have abandoned them and try to build support back up from the true centre of British politics (that's a bit more to the right of a significant number of Lib Dem frontbenchers like Cable and Hughes). The aftermath of Thursday's election results has led to a lot of noise from the left of the Lib Dem party suggesting that they need to become more obstructive and demand more policies that would appeal to the supporters they've lost since allying themselves with the Tories. While there is sound logic in Lib Dems maintaining their identity apart from the Tories, I suspect much of this talk exposes good old fashioned anti-Tory feelings that have been painfully suppressed by their originators since the coalition was formed. And it's dangerous talk.

Tony Blair came to power intending to achieve radical reforms that would improve health, education and social cohesion. He failed miserably. Any improvements to public services were achieved through enormous increases in spending with little or no reform whatsoever. The result was ever diminishing returns on the investments. Productivity fell as budgets expanded seemingly inexorably. What improvements there were often proved to be illusory as real world experiences of public services were ignored in favour of managerial performance statistics that just ticked the right boxes for the politicians who started setting priorities instead of, for example, medical, educational or policing professionals. We were told that our young people had never been better educated, but employers were coming across increasing numbers of innumerate and even illiterate school leavers. We were told that our health service was the best in the world thanks to the enormous increases in spending there (it now costs over £100 billion a year). But cases of patients dying of malnutrition in hospital beds increasingly appeared in the media, complaints about uncaring and incompetent treatment increased and health outcomes lagged behind countries who's health services really did provide best in class care.

If there is one lesson this government must learn from the previous administrations it is that reform is the only route to genuine and long lasting improvement. What stopped Blair from achieving his goals? The answer is Brown. More accurately, it was the competing agendas of two camps in the Labour party, the Brownite left and the more reform friendly Blairite modernisers. Brown crippled Blairs reforms and eventually undid many of them. He was all for spending tax payers money but he didn't want to alienate the left of the Labour party by reforming services run and staffed by predominately natural Labour supporters in the public sector; staff who paid their dues to Unions who funded the activities of the Labour party. Indeed Brown thought that by massively increasing the number of people employed by the public sector (incredibly, and disastrously for our economy, to over 50% of the entire country's workforce) that Labour's future would be secured as "turkeys don't vote for Christmas" i.e. they're not likely to vote for the Tories as they believe they will reduce their numbers. In the end many did vote for Christmas and we are about to eat a lot of turkey. But I digress. The point is that, reform is vital, especially in health and education. And now we are finally starting to pay for Labour's largesse there won't be great wads of cash raining down to paper over the cracks that will inevitably appear if cuts are delivered without reform.


The reason the language emanating from the likes of Cable and Hughes is so dangerous is that, if it is listened to and acted upon, the Lib Dems will become the Brownites of the coalition. Hell bent on obstructing reform in order to focus on a subset of their support base that exists (actually existed would be more apt) out on the left wing. Believing, wrongly in my view, that a) they will ever come back and b) that they need them to survive as a real force in British politics. Ed Miliband's Labour is their natural home. Many politically aware leftists who may have once supported the Lib Dems will harbour a deep sense of betrayal as their world view leads them to believe most people agree with them deep down, that there is a "progressive" majority in Britain that's main aim should be to keep the Tories out. We heard Huhne, Mandelson and others describe this view during the AV referendum campaign. These people will not return to voting Lib Dem. Certainly not by the next election anyway.

This politicised view of the people of Britain is wrong. There is no progressive majority who would keep the Tories out for ever if only the Labour and Liberal Democrats got together. It's no coincidence that it was when Yes to AV campaigners started more explicitly describing AV as a way of "stopping the Tories" that their support started to plummet. It was a mistake, not least because AV wouldn't have "stopped the Tories". In fact what voters want to see is a government working with purpose, unity and competence to achieve real improvements, such as fixing the nations finances while improving services. They understand doing both is not easy but expect results none the less.

Those results won't come if Brownite style obstructiveness rears its one eyed grumpy head again within government in the form of Lib Dem attempts to win favour with voters who will never consider them again after they dared to stand with the great Tory Satan. Instead a better option would be to work constructively and supportively in government to deliver real and effective reform that will enable savings to be made in order to address the budget deficit, while entrenching long term improvements to services and avoid or mitigate the cuts short term affects. This will involved challenging policies as they are developed but doesn't include the public wholesale blocking of reform in order to be seen to be an opposition in government. Because if they do that, it won't be long before that's where they'll return, permanently.

If they stick together and make this coalition work, both parties can emerge at the next election and claim their fair share of the successes. Looking back from 2015, Labour will look as irrelevant as they really are in modern Britain. If things go very well there may even be an opportunity to replace Labour as one of the big two.

Why I'm AVing None Of It

The nation votes on Tomorrow to decide if it wants to switch to the Alternative Vote (AV) electoral system for choosing future governments. Our current First Past The Post system (FPTP) is definitely creaking under the strain of changing voting habits and many of our politicians look out of touch and, in extreme cases, downright corrupt. So a vote for change is a no-brainer, surely? I don't believe it is. This is a change that will fix none of the issues we face with our politics and could, potentially make some worse. 

The nation votes tomorrow. It votes across England to select local councillors, there's a by-election in Leicester South and mayoral elections in Leicester, Middlesbrough, Mansfield, Bedford and Torbay. It votes in Scotland in the Scottish Parliamentary elections. Scottish council elections had to be delayed there because of confusion caused the last time they combined parliament and local elections (and that is WITH voting machines in use!). In Wales, the National Assembly elections are taking place. And in Northern Ireland there's Assembly elections and local council elections.

Oh, and then there's the trifling matter of a proposal to change our electoral system to use the Alternative Vote system.

Anybody who has been following the Yes and No campaigns who didn't know where they stood before they kicked off will now be completely baffled, annoyed and turned off. As a result many won't vote, which is a shame because this is a very important decision. The last thing this country needs is to make a major constitutional change based on a small turnout. But that is a distinct possibility.

I will be voting and be voting No. My main reason for rejecting the proposal is that the case for change has not been made. Most of the claims made for AV by the Yes campaign have no solid evidence to back them up. They are based on poorly thought through theoretical arguments and are almost entirely focused on the election process for each individual MP. Notice how little Yes refer to the national effects of AV. When they do they make misleading statements about parties winning power with less than 50% of the national vote. This situation will not be resolved with AV in the slightest. If anything, AV can deliver even greater disproportionate results. Electing MPs with over 50% of the vote does not translate into Governments being elected with over 50% of MPs in parliament.

The Yes campaign has attempted to discredit its opponents by calling them liars, dinosaurs, idiots and, of course, Tories [queue Labour supporters suggesting the latter is just an amalgam of all the former!]. It's for others to decide whether I'm an idiot, a dinosaur or a liar but I can confirm I vote Conservative. AH! HA!.. banged to rights. Stop reading, my views are worthless now. Of course I'm against AV; it would be like a turkey voting for Christmas, wouldn't it? Well no. Actually it wouldn't. I don't subscribe to the Huhne/Mandleson doctrine that AV would be especially bad for the Tories. It would benefit the LibDems, certainly, in the short term as they would benefit from most peoples' 2nd preferences. But I actually think it will damage them in the long term as the two main parties move even closer together than they are now and completely dominate the centre ground that is the natural habitat of the LibDem. AV could lead to LibDems needing to enter into a permanent coalition agreement with one of the two parties to survive. Something that happened with the Liberal and National parties in Australia shortly after AV was introduced there. 

The most worrying aspect of the Yes campaign has been the unrealistic expectations it has set for AV in the public's mind, should they be successful.

AV will increase voter participation 
There's no evidence in other countries (well the three that have it) that this is the case. Part of the case made here is that AV reduces (or eliminates, as Yes campaigners often claim) the need for tactical voting. This is true (the reduction is true, not the elimination) with regard to the first, primary vote. However, AV allows you to state 2nd, 3rd and more preferences. This is where the tactical voting takes place. Tactical voting isn't eliminated it's formalised.  Huhne's (and other pro-AV campaigners') claims that AV is an anti-Tory system proves that point. They believe AV will encourage preferential anti-Tory voting (i.e. I like the LibDems so I'll vote for them, but they can't win here so I'll place the party most likely to beat the Tory as my 2nd preference etc). I don't believe the Tories will be the only victims of this kind of tactical voting, many left wing supporters of AV are deluding themselves if they believe they will not be victims when they are unpopular. However, under AV voters will be encouraged to vote tactically by parties, just as they are in Australia, who hand out voting advice cards that show them how to vote most effectively for their primary choice.

FPTP disenfranchises large numbers of voters

Those thinking that FPTP disenfranchises large numbers of voters and causes widespread tactical voting to compensate, should note that only 16% of people voted tactically in the last election. The idea that a vote for a losing party is a wasted vote is nonsensical. People look at the parties/candidates on offer and choose the party/candidate that most reflects their own values and opinions. Some (a very small number) choose to vote negatively, if their preferred party is unelectable in their constituency, to block a party they've taken a particular dislike to. That's fair enough. But AV doesn't stop that behaviour. And just because your political opinions aren't shared by many people in your constituency doesn't mean you have been disenfranchised or that the system should allow you to change your vote if your candidate is knocked out so that you can switch from your positive choice to a tactical 2nd/3rd preference.


Switching to AV is about fairness and not an attempt to stitch elections up for one faction or another

Huhne's talk of AV being about beating the Tories seems to be a big mistake as the Yes poll rating have collapsed since. The idea that a system will benefit the left or "progressive alliance" as he likes to call it against the right is not an attractive reason for people to vote for the change. They've gone public with their deluded belief now and the cat is out of the bag.

Talking of cats. This is the best pro-AV video I've seen. Not least due to its Goebbelesque effectiveness in getting the message across using cute little kitties as metaphors and avoiding hard facts, and any political talk that so turns off the general public. It even alludes to the Huhme delusion that the left would have been in power if only it wasn't split by multiple parties up against one united right wing party - Note the Dog sporting a top hat vs a number of cute kitties. Again, AV does nothing to stop this even if it was true but it can't hurt to entice some more lefties to vote Yes, can it?!



AV will make MPs work harder and be more honest because it eliminates/reduces safe seats.
This is utter nonsense (in the words of Professor John Curtice, expert in Electoral Reform and Elections at Strathclyde University). AV will make some marginal seats a bit more marginal, and may even make some seats (especially Lib Dem seats, even safer due to the "middle party 2nd preference effect"). So some close seats will change hands but most will remain as they are. Also, analysis of expenses that had to be paid back by MPs shows that there was no correlation between the safeness of a seat and the abuse of expenses that went on in 2009. So even if you choose to believe the claim that AV significantly reduces the number of safe seats, it would make no difference to MPs behaviour whatsoever. I believe there are real reforms that could be implement that would make our government and parliament more effective and responsive - but AV wouldn't play any part in them. 

MPs are elected with more than 50% of the Vote

Firstly there's the technical fact that this won't necessarily always be the case as not all voters will rank all available candidates and so many will be "disenfranchised" because their vote won't count when their candidate/s are knocked out. But what worth is a candidate with over 50% if that threshold was crossed thanks to non-primary votes? Any candidate that finished 2nd or 3rd on primary votes but ends up winning because they received more 2nd/3rd preference votes would be seen as a 2nd choice MP, less legitimate than parliamentary colleagues who win on primary votes alone.

If AV is good enough to elect the party leaders, it's good enough for the people to elect a government.
The Liberal Democrats and Labour do use AV but the Conservatives don't. The Conservatives have a similar system in that involves multi-round voting but they get a chance to vote again after each round. This allows the electorate to compare the remaining candidates and make ever more focused decisions until a winner is found. It's better than AV but completely impracticable for national elections. AV isn't a bad system for electing individuals, but isn't suited for parliamentary elections electing whole governments due to the unpredictable results and it's potential to accentuate landslide results even more than FPTP does currently.

The worst thing about this referendum is that there are serious problems with our democracy: Lack of public engagement in politics; out of touch parliamentarians (as evidenced by the expenses scandal) and an over powerful executive that can ride roughshod over parliament and make major policy mistakes with little effective scrutiny. AV is the solution to precisely none of these problems. It isn't even part of the solution. The tragedy is that so much energy is being burned up debating this irrelevant proposal, that the real issues are out of sight and, regardless of the result, will probably not come into focus again for another generation.

No Complacency For No Campaign As Turn Out Is Crucial

TotalPolitics.com

With the referendum a mere two days away many people are writing off the chances of Yes winning. Polls published on Sunday show No have a healthy lead over Yes. There's clearly no appetite in the country for this change but these polls and the constant talk of the no hope Yes campaign is probably the biggest threat that the No campaign faces.

The Yes campaign can easily muster its supporters, many of who have a vested interest in achieving the change. Those that don't and have come to the conclusion that AV is a good idea will still be more motivated to vote than your average voter on council election polling day. It's hard to get excited about voting against something, about maintaining the status quo. Especially when you know there are real problems with politics in this country but don't think the change on offer will do anything to address them. So, if there's one thing the No campaign needs to focus on this week, it's getting its vote out on Thursday.

Nick Clegg knew what he was doing when he insisted on the 5th May as the date for the referendum. He knew there were only local council elections in England, no elections at all in London while important Scottish and Welsh Parliament/Assembly elections would be held, meaning low turn out in England and higher turnouts in Scotland and Wales where he calculated support for AV would be highest. Polls bear this analysis out. Although not to the extent that the Yes camp must have hoped. The problem for the No camp is that failure to get their vote out in England could allow Yes a victory, even if the most populous region of the UK rejects the change. This would seriously damage the integrity of the United Kingdom and lead to even more dissatisfaction with politics in an England that would have had a system it didn't want foisted upon it.

Recent polls suggest there could be a turn out nationally of less than 40% for the referendum. That's not good and would seriously damage the credibility of a Yes decision should that be the outcome. If only 35% of the electorate turns out to vote and 51% of them back this constitutional reform, that leaves 82% of people who either don't want it or weren't convinced enough to go and vote for it. Personally, I don't have any sympathy for the non-voters in elections but I do believe that referendums that propose major constitutional change should require a minimum threshold on turnout to ensure solid popular backing for change. However, I think whoever loses on Thursday should accept the result and never darken our doorsteps again with talk of electoral reform or a return to FPTP. However, a low turnout will create deep unease amongst many and could lead to further expensive reviews, political establishment navel gazing at a time when there are much more important matters for them to be sorting out and even another referendum on an alternative to the Alternative Vote. And that's the last thing anybody wants to see (apart from most of the people behind the Yes campaign, of course, who actually want PR instead).

So, let's hope for a healthy turnout on Thursday, 5th May and a decisive, truly national result.

Will AV Cost More Than FPTP? And Who's Worse - Woolas, Osborne or Huhne?

Flushed with their success at nailing lying Labour MP and Ed Miliband front bencher Phil Woolas, Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes are now threatening legal action over the No campaign's claim that AV will cost more than FPTP.

Before their success against Woolas, the Lib Dems had seen the successful prosecution of another Labour liar, Miranda Grell, who accused her Lib Dem opponent of being a paedophile and in doing so had won a council seat that was previously unwinnable for Labour. The Phil Woolas case was a landmark judgement as it was the first to overturn a constituency election result in a parliamentary election since 1911 and it reminded politicians of the boundaries they should be working within when making personal attacks on their opponents. Woolas and his Labour election team had suggested that his Lib Dem opponent wooed extremist elements of the Muslim community who were advocating violence in order to gain votes, that he was willing to condone threats of violence for personal advantage and finally, and least seriously, Woolas claimed he didn't live in the constituency, when he knew that he did.

To personally attack someone and suggest they are a paedophile or willing to soft peddle on violence or terrorism to attract votes is pretty serious stuff, Grell and Woolas got their just deserts in the end. However, some warned at the time of the Woolas judgement that it could lead to fatuous and politically motivated threats of legal action in the future and now we seem to be seeing just that.

Thankfully, no one is being accused of supporting violence or touching the kids. However, the truth is that both campaigns have made questionable claims. It's hard to judge who's been more misleading. As a confirmed No supporter I obviously am more sensitive to the misleading Yes claims. But I also recognise the No camp are making some dodgy claims themselves. But is "the AV will cost more than FPTP" one of them?

The No camp claim AV will cost £250 million to implement. This figure includes the cost of the referendum (fair enough I say, but I can see the point that that is a cost effectively already spent) and it includes the cost of buying counting machines. The issue here is that no detail has been specified in the parliamentary bill on how AV elections will be executed. So, no one knows if machines will be used or not. The Yes campaign point to Australia where they've run their AV elections without machines for 80 years. The No lot point a little closer to home, to Scotland, where machines are used in council and parliamentary elections. However, Scotland don't use AV but various other systems for their council and Scottish Parliamentary elections. The degree to which the counting of votes for these different systems in Scotland are more or less complex than counting AV votes is open to debate. However, clearly Australia don't need machines and even if they did, we don't have to, it will just take longer before the result is known - gone will be the "exciting" election night results so beloved of political junkies, like myself.

So, from the arguments I've heard being made publicly by the No campaign, the voting machine case is not made. It is a possibility if it is decided that speed is important but there is no definite requirement for them at this time. That reduces the £250m bill by £130m to £120m. The rest of the claim seems reasonable to me. So, yes it will cost more but perhaps not as much (in upfront costs anyway) as No claim. But, hold on, look underneath the claim, at the details and it's surprising that there's more to the the No case than they are managing to get out into the public conciousness.

There is a more convincing argument made by the No campaign in the detail of their claim but they rarely make it in public, presumably because it's quite technical and boring. However, I think it gives them more of a leg to stand on, if not a whole one.. That is that, unlike in Australia, there are already multiple different electoral systems in use in the UK, especially in Scotland and Wales where various forms of electoral system are used at UK national, Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and local council elections. Scottish people would face up to five different systems, the Welsh four and English three. If all systems were used at once, No claim, it would be impossible to deliver the results as quickly or accurately as we are used to in this country without automation.

However, again, the worst case scenario of all systems being used at once i.e. English local council, General Election, Euro parliament, Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, Scottish local councils etc. does not usually happen, although it is fair to say that they do double, triple or more up (as we've seen, controversially, with this AV referendum occurring at the same time as the Welsh assembly, Scottish parliament and English local elections). With multiple ballot papers being counted in completely different ways at the same time, it becomes impossible to manage counts effectively and automation would almost certainly be required - as they've found in Scotland already (they introduced automation for this very reason). This is a more compelling case for the use of voting machines. But again, there is a manual alternative. It just means very long waits for results, which we are not used to and may not want, or slightly longer waits but massive increases in man power at each and every count in the country - a big and ongoing cost.

But even if you ignore the multiple system count argument and the up front referendum/counting machine/voter education costs, what is not in doubt is that AV will cost more than FPTP in on-going running costs. The multi-round counting of preferences until someone gets "50%"* of the vote will inevitably take a lot longer, more man hours of effort in more places to achieve a reasonable turn around and acceptable accuracy. Given this fact alone, the No campaign is correct to say AV will cost more than FPTP. The £250m figure may be debatable (I suspect if running costs are taken into account it is a lot more than this) but that is the nature of political argument.

Threatening legal action and accusing the Chancellor of being a liar is unjustifiable and the action of a desperate campaign that is losing the argument with the public. If anything, such campaign tactics are more comparable to the Woolas style personal attacks on an individual's honesty and credibility than the No campaign making an argument (whether you agree with it or not) about the cost of an electoral system. Legal action is not on the cards either way, but it is hypocritical of Huhne, Hughes, Ashdown et al to accuse others of lying, then to dredge up the threat of Woolas style legal action, when it is they that are resorting to personal attacks and traducing their opponents.

I also suspect that figures on the left of the Lib Dems like Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes are deliberately targeting Tory individuals in the No campaign (remember it is a cross party platform that enjoys the support of many Labour and well as non-political people) in order to damage the coalition with a view to forcing an early bale out (and an early election). Huhne and Hughes would then be in strong positions to make a bid for leadership to "rescue" the Lib Dems following what would be a disastrous election result for Clegg (even under AV!). Or am I making an unjustifiable personal attack? Oh, just sue me, why don't you??

* Don't get me started on the "MPs will be elected with over 50% support" claim AV proponents make. That's a whole other post!

Decision Time For Labour - Banana Man or Forrest Gump

It's not long now until one of the Milibands gets elected to the position of leader of the Labour Party. The world waits with disinterested breath (what do you mean that doesn't make any sense?) for the result announcement at 4 sometime or other, later today.

Will Labour veer to the left with David or lurch to the left with Ed? For both candidates served under New Labour but have played to the Real Labour agenda that the party membership, unions and many MPs wish they could return to.

Between the two Milibands, David is seen as the most moderate and "New Labour"; Ed has been dubbed Red Ed due to his left wing rhetoric and increasingly delusional deficit denying that is almost on a par with Ed Balls' position.

Clearly David would be the more electable candidate but he has promised a left turn (even if not as sharp a one as his brother) to the Labour/Union electorate and they will expect him to deliver, damaging the party's chances of getting back in. That's good news for the country but it could be even better...

I've always thought Ed had a good chance of winning even though David's been the clear favourite up to very recently. That's because of Labour tripartite electoral college and the AV electoral system that means 2nd preference votes can make a big difference to the result. It seems to me that most Brownites will vote for Ed Balls but give their 2nd prefs to Ed Miliband. While the other leftists will split their 1st pref votes among Balls, Abbot and Burnham but, knowing it's really going to be between D and E Miliband will place a 2nd pref vote for the one taking a more leftist position - Red Ed. So David could win on 1st preference votes - clearly the most sensible result for Labour, but if it's close and 2nd preferences become relevant he could lose due to tactical preferential voting. Labour would be left (in both senses of the word) with a candidate no one really wanted.




David must be praying it isn't close and that he wins outright. Otherwise, how he'll regret his cowardice when he shrank from dislodging the obviously failing Gordon Brown earlier this year. He could have seized the day back then and relieved us all of Brown's malign influence sooner than was otherwise the case. Instead, he put his personal interest (didn't want to lead a party likely to lose the next election and feared the Brownite backlash) before the country's and even his party's.



Pity poor Labour. Their choice is between two barely humanoid nerds, one a coward and one an unelectable leftist looky-likey of Forrest Gump.

We Live In Interesting Times

The Chinese can be blamed for a lot of things, Tiananmen Square, over population, wrecking the Copenhagen deal, inventing fireworks that keep me awake in the run up, throughout, and for some time after, November every year, but mostly for delicious take away food that has contributed to my being over weight contributing, possibly, to my early death (hopefully still in the future whenever it is that you're reading this). However, this week the Chinese proverb "May you live in interesting times"  seems to have cursed this great nation of ours in relation to our recent General Election.

Things got even more interesting today following Gordon Brown's resignation. This should be a moment to celebrate for everyone but the blindest Labour apologist, but look deeper and you will see it isn't. As with all Gordon Brown's utterances, you have to read between the lines to work out what he really means. This resignation is really about extending his premiership, for up to an incredible 4 months, beyond the General Election in which he and his party were soundly beaten.

Gordon's resignation is designed to entice Nick Clegg into negotiations and a deal with Labour while his party descends into civil war between the various potential leadership camps such as the Milibandians/Ballistas and the Harridans. He is determined to cling on as Prime Minister as long as (barley) constitutionally possible, and almost as important is the chance to scupper a deal that would see the election's winning party, The Conservatives, take over the reigns.

The Tories have today offered the LibDems electoral reform in the shape of the Alternative Vote system. This was a system favoured by Labour, and for good reason as it favours them even more than the current FPTP system with it's bias for Labour due smaller constituency sizes and low turn out in Labour areas, amongst other things. However, it's clear that the Tories will allow a referendum (as any electoral reform should have) but will campaign against the change itself.

I can only think that the Tories believe that AV, of all the options for change, is the easiest to defeat in a referendum. As you can see from the table below, if the relationship between seats won and share of the vote is what's important to you (what some call "fair votes"), then AV is worse than FPTP.  

It's a big gamble for Cameron and if it doesn't pay off this system would further entrench the Labour party in power. But, it seems, the offer is necessary to keep the LibDems interested. Even though it has succeeded in that objective, Clegg is now sniffing around Labour to see what they can offer. This double dealing looks bad and must leave a nasty taste in the Tory negotiators mouths as they continue to maintain their respectful, reasonable and conciliatory stance with the LibDems (despite their poor showing in the General Election) while they attempt to play one side off against the other to get maximum pay back. Meanwhile the country continues to yearn for some decisiveness and a government we, and the markets, can have confidence in.

The final offer is now in the table, take it or leave it, Clegg. Take it, and you get the chance to give the Liberals something they've not had for decades, real power and the chance to implement real policies and effect real change.

Leave it, and show the nation how you put party before country, how afraid you are of real responsibility during what will be difficult times to govern, and be rightly condemned to another 100 years in the wilderness for your cowardice. That is, of course, unless your Labour friends in parliament manage to agree to vote for a referendum on PR (highly unlikely, despite what Gordon says). In which case (assuming you win the referendum) we can look forward to you whoring your support around the other parties like some kind of surrogate electorate choosing who should govern, while the real electorate looks on, bemused and wondering what their "fair votes" are really worth.