Election? What election?

[Neil Foxlee]

How do you know your local cat-burglar, June? I'm intrigued! Did you see my earlier post asking for your opinion on the East Lothian (?) question as regards PR?

[CantSleepClownsWillGetMe]

The cat-burglar? Haha! This is a small town Neil - everyone knows him! Some of them (the older ones like me) know he waits in the pub to see who comes in, hangs around until his target is well-oiled, then nips up to their house (on his bike ... because it's quieter), burgles them and then free-wheels back down to the pub after dropping off his takings. Mind you, Dee-Dee's getting on a bit now; he used to be built like a jockey (actually one of his brothers was a jockey) but now he's just short and fat, so I imagine small windows would be out of the question now. Mind you, I'm still pretty vigilant about securing my double patio doors of a night ... ;-)

Regarding the PR question ... I should make it clear here and now that I'm an SNP supporter and would love to see an Independent Scotland one day (fat chance, but I can dream), and anything that would give the SNP a greater voice is fine by me. People up here who support them would be more likely to vote for them if they knew it would actually get a result. And I rather like the mix of FPTP and AMS that our Scottish Parliament uses, with the resulting number of seats each party ends up with being not too far away from their percentage of the national vote. What do you think?

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/e ... ropRep.htm

Too complicated?

[Neil Foxlee]

I'll look at it later and try to get my head round it. I've no problem with the SNP, except that an independent Scotland would leave us English facing an inbuilt Con majority (see previous links to election maps).

Here I'd prefer what a friend has called a Jamaican coalition - Lab, LibDem and Green, corresponding to the red, gold (yellow) and green of the Ethiopian/Pan-African/ Rastafarian flag. But first the LibDems need to extract a watertight commitment to a properly phrased referendum on electoral reform, against the backdrop of a potential market crisis which might persuade some that the priority lies with stable government and that anything else would be a distraction.

[Neil Foxlee]

Meanwhile in Barking, the other Nick (Griffin) got 14.6% (down 1.7%).

[NormanD]

They lost all their council seats (also in Stoke, where they had a jackboot/foothold, though I've not seen the figures). Griffin has been moaning about the higher voter turnout working against him. The BNP's main site is down, having been hijacked by one of his former cohorts who's fallen out badly with him and the BNP, so I can't see how he explains away their failure. I expect the BNP will - after a period of intensive internal feuding - move away from the Parliamentary road and revert to good ol' English fists and boots (not that they've ever stopped any of that).

It would be good if the anti-fascist coalition in Barking kept its momentum going and got rid of Margaret Hodge. The anti-fascist vote there does not equate to an increase in her popularity. Maybe she'll start taking a real interest in the people of Dag & Barking, and not in her own continuing desires for a safe Commons seat.

[Neil Foxlee]

June, I've had a look at the Scottish system and it certainly is an interesting compromise solution. Was it introduced after a referendum?

[will vine]

Let's all stand on the middle ground so we can all sink together.

All the parties we get to vote for are tinkering with the same engine. We should have a scrappage scheme and get ourselves a new car.

I'd have voted for the first politician to have replied to one of Paxman's questions with
"..Stone me! not a clue old fruit....probably just have to busk that one when it comes along."

[Des]

They lost all their council seats (also in Stoke, where they had a jackboot/foothold, though I've not seen the figures). Griffin has been moaning about the higher voter turnout working against him. The BNP's main site is down, having been hijacked by one of his former cohorts who's fallen out badly with him and the BNP, so I can't see how he explains away their failure. I expect the BNP will - after a period of intensive internal feuding - move away from the Parliamentary road and revert to good ol' English fists and boots (not that they've ever stopped any of that).

It would be good if the anti-fascist coalition in Barking kept its momentum going and got rid of Margaret Hodge. The anti-fascist vote there does not equate to an increase in her popularity. Maybe she'll start taking a real interest in the people of Dag & Barking, and not in her own continuing desires for a safe Commons seat.

Can we have a 'Like' button on the forum please?

[CantSleepClownsWillGetMe]

June, I've had a look at the Scottish system and it certainly is an interesting compromise solution. Was it introduced after a referendum?

No. (Okay, I freely admit I had to look the answer up) It was introduced after Labour set up a commission in 1997 to look into possible PR voting systems for the House of Commons. Scotland isn't the only place that uses FPTP+AMS - the London Assembly and the National Assembly of Wales use it too. Not quite sure why Labour thought it was good enough for us but not the rest of you, although I suspect the higher likelihood of shared government played it's part ... ;-)

See http://www.parliament.uk/documents/comm ... -04458.pdf

[Neil Foxlee]

Thanks June. That certainly makes it sound a sellable proposition in a referendum.

[Ted]

Margaret Hodge. ...
Maybe she'll start taking a real interest in the people of Dag & Barking, and not in her own continuing desires for a safe Commons seat.

When she was head of Islington Council in the 80s she was known as Margaret "Three Houses" Hodge.

[NormanD]

I remember seeing a gushing newspaper profile of Hodge and Shirley Porter (then Westminster Council leader) that compared their similar class and family backgrounds, and the oddity of them being on opposing political sides. I bet that was the first and only time Margaret Hoxha has been called a leftist.

One point I haven't seen addressed is how well Labour has done in the local council elections. They've gained control of around 15 councils nationally and had a net gain of over 400 councillors. The Tories have lost nine and around 120, the LibCons have lost four and 140. Given that electors were voting for MP and local representatives at the same time, why did Labour lose MPs but gain councils? The level of voting may have been significantly up as it was also a general election, probably more so for the council ballot every four years. Was it merely that, or are there other political implications (eg, you might have an input into your kids' school, but you can't into Whitehall, etc etc).

Any thoughts anyone?

[Rob Hall]

Any thoughts anyone?

Widespread dislike of Brown as representative of the Labour Party at national level. It would seem to suggest that there's opportunity for Labour to work themselves back into favour with the electorate from the grassroots up.

[Neil Foxlee]

Could be that people were voting Labour at council level to defend local services.

[Neil Foxlee]

Nick Robinson again (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/:

" 'There is an alternative'

That is the message coming from the leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond. He's calling on the Liberal Democrats to join him and Plaid Cymru and Labour in a "progressive alliance" instead of doing a deal with the Conservatives.

Mr Salmond says: "The assumption of a Tory/Liberal Democrat pact is not correct. There are alternative and more progressive options available if politicians have the will to seize the moment. The SNP and Plaid are indicating that we do."

An arrangement between Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and Plaid could command a majority in the House of Commons (see the figures below). The nationalist parties would, of course, extract financial and political concessions from Westminster.

The key question Liberal Democrats have to consider is how stable such an arrangement would prove to be. Legislating for a referendum on electoral reform, staging it and implementing the necessary boundary changes could take over two years. So, if PR is the main goal for many Lib Dems they'd have to be sure that "the progressive alliance" would last that long.

If it does come about it would highlight one little talked about but significant development in this election - the growing gulf between England and the rest of the UK. In England the Tories secured almost 40% of the vote and 297 seats whilst Labour got just 28% and 191 seats.

Now you might think that the nationalists would want a Tory/English government at Westminster cutting public spending, since it would increase support for independence.

However, both the SNP and Plaid are now in government facing elections next year and would prefer to be able to say to the electorate "look how we protected you from cuts/extracted money to pay for Scottish and Welsh jobs".
The DUP in Northern Ireland may well make the same calculation.

If all joined together in an anti-Tory alliance they would have a comfortable majority - with 340 votes in the Commons - although comfortable is not how the arrangement between Labour and its traditional nationalist foes might feel to them or many Conservative voters in England.

If you like the detail, here are the figures :

No party has enough seats to win votes in parliament without the support of members of other parties.

The Conservatives are the largest party with a total of 306 seats in the Commons - which would go up to 307 -- if they win the delayed election in Thirsk and Molton - until now, at least, a safe Conservative seat.

If they tried to govern alone they would, in theory, face a combined opposition of 343 MPs.
In reality it's somewhat different. Sinn Fein won 5 seats - and they don't take their seats in the House of Commons - so the opposition benches reduce to 338.

A Con/Lib Dem coalition would give them a total of 364 - enough to govern comfortably.

A looser arrangement in which the Lib Dems agreed not to vote against a Tory Budget or the Queen's Speech would mean 306 or 307 Tories facing a depleted opposition of 281 (that's 338 - 57 Lib Dems)

If a Lib Dem/Conservative deal fails, Gordon Brown will try to form a government.

If Labour and the Lib Dems joined forces - the extra 57 votes are not enough to make them the biggest force even with the support of the Northern Irish SDLP (who sat on the government benches in the last parliament) and the one new Alliance MP who is allied to the Lib Dems. Together that's 319 votes.

With the support of the nationalists from Scotland and Wales they would reach 330.

If the DUP joined too and the independent unionist and the new Green MP this alliance would have 338 votes in the Commons."