New Jerusalem (old)

Moved

2006-09-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

My new blog is here: http://sosialydd.wordpress.com/

Sweden: Left trails in exit polls... but not by much

2006-09-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

One exit poll hath a Right lead of about 2pts, another about 4pts.

Rhode Island Primary

2006-09-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

Rep. Jim Langevin has won the Democratic nod in RI-2 with about 61% of the vote, easily beating some liberal hack with the amusing surname "Lawless".
The only reason why Langevin (a Catholic) was challenged in the primary at all was because of his position on abortion... as far as almost all other issues go he's staunchly leftwing; he has an excellent record on Union issues, is pro-environment, voted against the war in Iraq, is a strong supporter of gun control, is in favour of some form of universal healthcare system and voted against Marilyn Musgrave's Same Sex Marriage Resolution. His life story (he was paralyzed in a firearms accident at the age of 16) should probably be mentioned as well.
Obviously I'm pleased that he won, and won so strongly.

In other news, liberal Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee beat off a conservative challenger by more than expected. But you know that already.

Another Labor landslide in Queensland

2006-09-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

Results here

Some U.S House election polls...

2006-09-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

Are over here

O/c they have to be taken with a pinch of salt or three, but some of the poll internals are very interesting.

So Blair will go at...

2006-09-07T07:54:00.000-07:00

...any time between now and a year from now. I'd like it to be sooner, rather than later, but at least he's confirmed that his time at No.10 is drawing to a close.

I suspect that he'll try to struggle on until May, although he might end up going before then... depends how the next few weeks pan out really.

And just to point out something rather obvious that the London media has (as usual) failed to notice; the pressure on Blair to resign before the May elections isn't there because they are expected to be a "disaster" (if a nightmarish set of elections were expected it'd make sense to have him stay until after them, carry the can for the results, and resign). It's because they are so very uncertain; in Wales a few thousand votes could well make all the difference between Labour being forced into another coalition, winning back their majority or staying where they are now, while in Scotland it seems possible on the one hand that the status quo might continue, while on the other the prospect of the SNP as the largest party may be very real.
And nothing worries politicians more than uncertainty.

Time to go

2006-09-06T07:16:00.000-07:00

The list of resignations now reads: Tom Watson, Khalid Mahmood, David Wright, Ian Lucas, Mark Tami, Chris Mole and Wayne David.
Solid Labour men all of them. Old Right Trade unionists, machine politicians, lifelong activists; the sort of people that are needed to hold together any Labour government, and the sort of people who are loyalists by their very nature.
When people like that are calling on the Dear Leader to retire sooner rather than later, maybe he should listen to them, instead of branding them:

Disloyal, Discourteous and Wrong

As Khalid Mahmood pointed out in his resignation letter:

The party and the Labour Government's work is more important than any individual.

While I'm not a fan of public infighting, Blair has brought this upon himself.

We won a game!

2006-08-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

FINALLY!!!

Peter Wilby is an idiot

2006-08-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

Sadly this doesn't appear to be a spoof

Selfish ****.

Anything you want Guv?

2006-08-26T04:33:00.000-07:00

A new YouGov poll hath been released: Con 38%, Lab 31%, LDem 18%. Labour drops 2pts, the other two parties stay as in previous poll.
YouGov's Labour numbers have been quite stable for a while:

32%, 31%, 32%, 32%, 33%, 33%, 31%

Call it a third, give or take headlines.

Not much to worry about then.

I have a bad feeling about this...

2006-08-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

Keane set to be Sunderland boss

Before anyone has a panic attack or anything...

2006-08-22T05:51:00.001-07:00

Figures for all three serious parties from the last few ICM polls (including non ICM/Grauniad ones and the new one)...

Labour: 35, 32, 34, 32, 35, 35, 31
Tories: 35, 34, 38, 37, 36, 39, 40
LDems: 21, 24, 20, 21, 18, 17, 22

The margin of error is around about 3% or maybe 4%.

Think for a minute.

Playing Politics with Terror

2006-08-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

It's a sad reflection of politics these days that whenever there's a terrorist attack or an attempted terrorist attack, certain politicians and certain organisations are quick to seize the oppertunity to either further their agenda, or to score cheap political points.

The Association of Chief Police Officers is currently lobbying the Government to grant them new powers of summary justice, alledgedly to deal with people committing acts of petty crime and so on. For reasons that should be obvious, I don't think they would be calling for this in such a public way, if there had not been a terror alert a few days ago.
Essentially they want the ability to punish low level criminals without having to go through the legal system; this seems to me to be clearly wrong, as we all know the police are certainly not infallable and we also all know that certain police officers are not above abusing the powers they have already.
While political reality means that, sadly, the Police probably will get some of what ACPO is asking for, I'm hopeful that it will stop at "some".

Meanwhile, David Cameron has won himself the dubious honour of being the first senior politician to blatently play the recent failed terrorist attacks for political points. This is what he said:

"I do not believe that our government is doing enough to fight Islamist extremists at home or to protect our security."

Does this man have no decency, does this man have no shame? Does he even have any honesty?
As a rather unpleasant terrorist atrocity which could have killed up to 5,000 people has just been stopped, largely due to the efforts of a government which he accuses of not doing enough to protect us, I think the answer to that question is a rather firm NO!

Not that that is at all suprising; what I find interesting is how a highly authoritarian agenda is hidden behind what he says is a "hard nosed defense of liberty"... Cameron throws a few crumbs to the liberal sections of the establishment by saying that he opposes ID cards and 90-day-detentions, while arguing for the use of phone-tap and etc evidence in court.
Let's think about this for a minute; while concerns over ID cards are certainly legitimate (especially over the costs) the idea that they constitute a serious threat to "liberty" is absurd, and while I have stronger concerns over 90-day-detentions, it is very unlikely that they would ever effect more than a handful of people.
The use of phone tap evidence in court, on the other hand, is something that would move us far, far further towards becoming Airstrip One than just about anything that any senior politician has seriously suggested for decades. The use of phone tap evidence collected legitimately is bad enough (and for reasons that should be fairly obvious), but the potential for abuse is just monstrous.
And finally, I couldn't help noticing this rather disturbing little thing he said as well:

"And why has so little been done to use the existing law to deal with the radicalisation that is rife within our shores?"

The blatent fear-mongering here is bad enough (and is the first thing I noticed), but his assertion that somehow the law should be used to "deal with" with radical Islamism seems a little worrying; is he suggesting banning ideologies now? (and if so, what exactly makes radical/reactionary Islam any worse than Nazism, Stalinism or Maoism? And if we, as a society, ban such ideologies, how much of the moral high ground have we lost?). Is he suggesting arresting anyone suspected of teaching/believing in such ideas?
It's possible, and probably quite likely, that he just wants to sound "Tough On Terror" and that the above from him was just a load of meaningless drivel, but I still can't help but find the assertion that someone the best way to prevent people from going into extremist politics is to use the long, crude, arm of the Law.

CT Primary

2006-08-09T07:39:00.000-07:00

I won't bother posting about who won (Lamont) or why or the implications and so on... there's enough of that elsewhere.

More interesting, to me anyway, was the obvious pattern of class voting; Lieberman did best in working class townships (with his best being East Haven; a blue collar suburb of New Haven), while Lamont polled very strongly in affluent and outright rich areas (his best township was Cornwall; a small, well off, town in the northwest of the state, and he polled close to 70% in ultra-rich Greenwich). Most of the bigger cities closely reflected the statewide results, with the exception of Bridgeport which voted for Lieberman.

For an excellent map of the results go HERE

Reg Keys can't count

2006-08-05T05:46:00.000-07:00

During the launch of his new self-important fringe party, Keys apparently claimed that he took "nearly 5,000 votes" in Sedgefield.

For the record, the results of the 2005 General Election in Sedgefield were:

Blair 24,421
Tory 5,972
LDem 4,935
Keys 4,252
Nutter 646
Nutter 253
Nutter 218
Nutter 209
Loony 157
Nutter 103
Nutter 97
Nutter 82
Nutter 68
Nutter 45
Nutter 17

To put these figures in context, let's look at how much each candidate who polled over 1,000 spent during the campaign:

Blair £8,172.98p
Tory £3,467.94p
LDem £854.79p
Keys £11,354.94p

No Comment

Today is a good day for Alan's everywhere

2006-07-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

President Alan Garcia of Peru (sworn in today).

I Have Returned

2006-07-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty good week; did a decent amount of both walking and thinking. Did me good.
Ah well.

Away

2006-07-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

I'll be away for a week

Dodgy but Legal?

2006-07-13T05:04:00.000-07:00

The reports of what went on in the (private) meeting between the police and M.P's are quite interesting; three things in particular.

1. The police don't seem at all certain whether or not there will be prosecutions, or even if the law (which is "somewhat" archaic) was actually broken.

2. More Tories have been questioned than any other group.

3. I think I'll just quote Tony Wright here: "And finally, the police said whatever the outcome of this investigation they'd be very happy to share the lessons of it with us and to do that in public evidence session".

===

The selling of peerages (or more accurately; giving peerages in the understanding that a donation will be made, or giving a donation in the understanding that a peerage will be granted) has been going on for longer than anyone reading this blog has been alive, and is something that all mainstream political parties have been involved in. No one who supports a mainstream political party has any right to go off on a gloating high-horse about any of this (and those that support fringe parties should watch it as well. After all the SNP take rather a lot of money from a wife beating racist who lives in a tax haven. Not mentioning any names of course).

By most standards it's not really corruption (sure, it's shady/dodgy/sleazy etc, but compared with what goes on in the U.S, in France, in Germany, even in Ireland (let's not mention Italy here), it's pretty minor. Petty even) except, perhaps, in a moral sense, but this doesn't mean that it isn't, and has always been, a problem and that it is probably time to clean the system up. And the only way that this can be done is to put strict limits on the amount of money the Parties can spend (and not just at election time) and go for a root-and-branch reform of the House of Lords.

...pending further enquiries...

2006-07-12T09:45:00.000-07:00

...Levy is out on bail now.

Not that I really care; while I dislike the man and what he stands for (ie; the increased power of individual donations from rich people in politics), the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act is a bit of a joke.

RIP Alan Senitt

2006-07-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

Jewish Campaigner knifed to death in U.S

Not a lot to say; dreadful news. RIP.

One Year Later

2006-07-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

I think you all know what happend a year ago and I think you all know what I think of it (ie; the same as all other sane people). So this isn't a post about what happend a year ago, but rather a post about things that happend because of it. And why some of these things have both affected me personally and made me very angry.

The first thing to note is that this does not really involve the majority of the population; something that is to their eternal credit and is another reason why I'm glad that I live in this country. Most people's reactions to the terrorist atrocities of last year was about as close to being faultless as it is possible for a great number of people to be.

I Blame...

The reaction of a wide range of people of a somewhat radical-left-libral point of view, was to ignore the attacks themselves, and move on as quickly as possible to blaming people other than the terrorists; I suppose you could call this the "Blair's Bombs" approach. And it is as intellectually disgraceful and childish as it/was is entirely predictable.
I would actually go so far as to call it cowardly.
Related to this viewpoint were the attempts to focus more attention on the unfortunate killing of a Brazillian electrician than all those killed by the terrorists, and so on and so forth. This viewpoint is as dull as it is predictable, and is generally much less disturbing (largely for those reasons) than the reactions of the other minority...

Islamophobia

The rise and rise of genuine Islamophobia in the West is not something I would especially like to write too much about at the moment, but the specific growth of it amongst the educated classes following the 7/7 attacks needs addressing, although as it has (quite absurdly; I'm not a Muslim) personally affected me, I won't try to write much on it either, for fear of this post turning into a very ugly rant.

Put bluntly, I had expected racist idiots to attack Mosques. I had expected the BNP to exploit the attacks for all they were worth.
What I did not expect was the growth of a bigotry which increasingly reminds me of genuine anti-semitism, amoungst so many people who should know better, and should know their history.

For the attitudes towards Muslims that have become almost mainstream within the middle classes, have more disturbing parallels with the sort of casual anti-semitism that was equally common amoung the same class of people (hah yes; perhaps I should have seen it coming...) in the early part of the 20th century. It hasn't reached the ugly pitch it has in many other European countries (notably the Netherlands) and, happily, it's not caught on amoung the bulk of the population, but it still exists. And it is still a problem.
At the core of these ugly views is the idea of a sort of "enemy within"; compare much of what was written (often by self-styled "liberals") in the months after the attacks (sorry; delete the bit about "months after the attacks". Have a look at how a certain newspaper reported a certain poll recently) with what was written during the early part of the past century about Jewish immigrants, especially in the press.

I have.

Which brings me to a final point; the terrorists of last year were not in any way typical of the wider Islamic community. The three Pakistanis were all Punjabis, generally from middle class backgrounds and well educated, and the fourth bomber was a black convert.
The roots of the day-to-day problems faced by the majority of British Muslims are economic and were sowed decades ago (especially as far as residential segregation goes).
This not the case with the tiny minority of Muslims that are extremists.

As a society we have to try to solve both problems, while fighting off the rising tide of genuine Islamophobia.
Or to put it another way; to bring greater equality to our society, while fighting against the forces of bigotry and extremism that stand in the way. Not a bad goal for a Socialist to advocate.

And as the reaction of the vast majority of people (both Muslims and the rest of us) to 7/7 showed, this is certainly possible.

Frankwell is still Frankwell

2006-07-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

It's not often that my home town get's into the news, and when it does it's not usually because of a brutal double murder in a brothel.

While it's obviously a terrible crime, I couldn't help finding some of the reaction to it published in the local rag to be a little odd; something that a lot of people seem to have been saying (more or less), is that "this isn't the sort of thing you'd expect to see in Frankwell".

This struck me as a very strange thing to say in light of Frankwell's history; the district used to be a river port (largely one dependent on the wool trade) and was a rough area, and then some. Actually it was often more than merely rough; the traditional housing pattern of Franwell is one of tenements grouped around courtyards, and these quickly developed into some genuinely appalling slums. The Little Borough was like this for generation after generation.

Some places can never really be changed; no matter how much they may have superficially changed, no matter how much they gentrify, underneath they remain as they have always been, and they still have a certain strange, sinister feel to them.

Frankwell is one of these places.

Now what I meant to say was...

2006-07-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

Instead of "F*** off and never come back" I actually intended to say... er... um... well... anyway... "clearly I am less than happy about the outcome of this match and feel that, in some small way, a rather grey (but very randy) Swede and some random troll from Merseyside, were largely to blame for this tragic state of affairs". Or words to that effect.

On a more serious level, I have found a genuine positive from this mess; Eriksson's reign of terror is over.

Back to politics now I think... and on that basis, I would like France to win so as to make Le Pen cry.

A message to Messrs. Eriksson and Rooney

2006-07-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

F*** off and never come back

Strange night

2006-06-30T03:59:00.000-07:00

I'll take a guess that everyone reading this blog will have seen the results by now so...

Blaenau Gwent; not really suprised by the result (it's interesting to note that Smith basically polled the 10,000 polled by Jones last year, although as not all of these 10,000 voted for Hopkins it may not be the same 10,000) but some things did suprise me, namely that the Labour candidates actually conceded defeat a while before the count was finished and the lack of much real venom in the post-count speeches, despite the obvious presence of a fair bit of it during the campaign (especially early on I think).
What happens next depends on a couple of factors, most of which are completely unpredictable...
Interesting times ahead... or maybe not. We shall see. It is, however, time to scrap the policy of all-women shortlists.

Oh taking the two by-elections together, five of the eight non-red-rosette candidates lost their deposits...

Bromley & Chislehurst; plenty of very real and very visable venom in the speeches here though... I'm still very suprised at how close this was though. Don't know Bromley and don't want to, so I've no idea why...

Blaenau Gwent and Bromley

2006-06-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

Living in England and trying to follow the Blaenau Gwent by-elections has been rather hard; the London media doesn't seem very interested, and the only Cardiff media articles I've been able to find online have verged upon the useless.

For what it's worth, and this may not be much, I think Labour will probably win the Westminster seat, while Trish Law will likely take the Assembly one; although to be honest I'm not exactly sure about either. I have a suspicion that it may all come down to turnout patterns across the constituency (apparently Labour are doing better in the smaller towns than in Ebbw Vale; Dai Davies is from there so that's not a suprise), something that makes any prediction quite hard.

Meanwhile, Bromley & Chislehurst goes to the polls as well; and while the London media have followed what is, after all, a London by-election much better than a Welsh one (there's a suprise for you...) I can't say I've been especially interested in it. I think we'll probably come fourth in Bromley as UKIP are putting a lot of effort into it... but I'd be very suprised if the Tories manage to lose. But they could suffer a moral defeat if their %'s slip from 2005. If anyone upsets them, it'll be the Liberals.

...and I'm back as well...

2006-06-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

What with one thing and another, I've not been able to find myself time for blogging recently... that's changed now.

Locals 2006; review part II

2006-05-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the late posting (have had computer problems)...

Barnsley: despite the hopes and predictions of a media that rarely strays North of Watford, not only did we keep our majority here, but actually gained a seat off the LibDems.

Birmingham: did a lot better than expected here, especially in heavily Kashmiri wards. South Brum was less than great, but I can't say I'm suprised. But coverage of Brum has been dominated by the allmighty cockup in Kingstanding...

Bolton: a good result; biggest party on the council again and very nearly gained even more seats. A truely awful seat of results for the LibDems...

Bradford: on the whole an excellent set of results, especially in the inner city (the margins in the City and Little Horton wards seem to have been some of the biggest in the country). We did a good job of holding off the BNP in the southern suburbs and made another gain off them. Sadly the BNP were able to pickup Queensbury (for those that don't know the area, it's a commuter town west of Bradford proper) off the Tories. Still, the contrast between the BNP results in Bradford and in (say) Barking is worth mentioning.
Interestingly enough, our lead in Bradford West was bigger in this set of local elections than in the General Election!

Bury: not good, but not suprising either. Not seen any ward results so can't comment further.

Calderdale: as always a weird set of results. Pleased to see us gain a seat off the BNP though.

Doncaster: solid set of results. Will hopefully be able to win back the majority next year... not that it matters a lot as Donny hath an elected Mayor now.

Dudley: held our ground quite well and made a gain. Not bad really. This is one borough where the BNP flopped (although they weren't far off in a few wards). The result in Castle & Priory was very good to see.

Gateshead: not much to say is there? Yawn (but in a good way).

Kirklees: as always a weird set of results. Good to see us make gains at least though.

Knowsley: the usual sea of red. And the usual shedload of unopposed Labour councillers.

Leeds: a solid set of results. Surreally similer to last time round actually. Not good to see the BNP gain in Morley though.

Liverpool: very encouraging; some real gains and we nearly caughted the yellow peril in the popular vote.

Manchester: excellent set of results, some of the best in the country. Especially sweet to see as the media was pumping out LibDem spin about Labour being in trouble there...
And it's still a Tory free zone...

Newcastle: bearing in mind the lack of Tories in so many marginal wards, not a bad result really. We should start to chip away at the Yellow Tory majority next year (checketh out the ward results if thee don't believe me).

North Tyneside: not a lot to say as very little changed and all that. Besides it's a Mayoral authority now.

Oldham: not a bad set of results really... kept our majority despite early BBC misreporting...

Rochdale: odd set of results... that we lost seats was not suprising bearing in mind THAT coalition, but the LibDems failed to win a majority... because we overturned a huge LibDem majority in Central Rochdale. Bizarre.

Rotherham: not just a sea of red, but a sea of red with some decent gains to boot...

Salford: not a lot of interest, but some ward results were mildly interesting.

Sandwell: generally good for Labour, but the BNP's showing was grim to see. Especially as their gains were by tiny margins on the whole...

Sefton: nowt changed. But the big question remains; what the f*** is Bootle doing in the same LA as Southport?

Sheffield: not much changed, which is good for us. Another poor set of results for the LibDems.

Solihull: unlike the General Election, no shocks here. Sad to see the BNP make a breakthrough...

South Tyneside: see Gateshead

St Helens: not a bad set of results really

Sunderland: the usual, as always. And good to see.

Tameside: see Gateshead

Trafford: thanks to the gerrymander, is a yaaaaaaaaawwwwwnnnnn...

Wakefield: zzz... some ward results interesting... zzz...

Walsall: some good gains here. Hopefully Walsall Labour is getting it's act together at last...

Wigan: much the same story as Barnsley. The media doesn't know or understand Wigan.

Wirral: nothing much changed I think.

Wolverhampton: not a lot changed. Good to see.

Locals 2006; review part I

2006-05-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

Just a quick review of the results in each borough...

London Boroughs

Barking & Dagenham: obviously the news that the BNP is now official opposition here is not exactly good. Nor is it suprising. A silver lining is the fact that Labour picked up some other seats off other the parties, but it's clear that a lot of work is needed in Barking now.

Barnet: nothing too suprising about the overall picture, although it's now quite clear that Finchley is London's capital of Champagne Socialism. How wonderfully ironic.

Bexley: I'm not entirely sure what the outgoing administration did to deserve that, although in the light of the dire General Election results there, it's not exactly a suprise.

Brent: was a disaster. Not quite a complete one, nor a suprising one, but a disaster none the less.

Bromley: the Tory landslide here was predictable, but I was suprised at quite how easily they butchered the LibDems.

Camden: also a disaster. But in this case the voting patterns were quite interesting; the Labour wipeout in the north of the borough was even worse than I'd expected, but we held on better in the south than I'd expected.

Croydon: a heavy defeat in Croydon was very much on the cards this year. I'm pleased to note that Labour held all four seats in New Addington and that, unlike Hainault or Harold Hill, the BNP didn't breakthrough there.

Ealing: this one came a bit out of the proverbial blue. Apparently we were hurt by the trams issue. Anyways, voting patterns here were very interesting... Acton looks like a good prospect for a Tory gain next election. Pleased that Labour held it's Northolt ward.

Enfield: good to see Labour make some solid progress here, especially in Enfield North. Were it not for That Week I think we'd have taken back control of the council.

Greenwich: not a lot to say really. I think the Labour counciller sued by a Tory candidate was re-elected, while said Tory was not.

Hackney: good results in both the Mayoral and council elections. The Tory Mayoral candidate even lost his council seat.

Hammersmith & Fulham: bad, very bad, but predictable. The only positive is that we still have a lot of councillers in Hammersmith.

Haringey: major losses, but we hung onto control all the same. Amused to note that we have a counciller in every ward on the "wrong" side of the tracks, but not one on the "right" side of them...

Harrow: not a suprise, interesting to see that the LibDems did even worse with a full slate than with just three candidates...

Havering: bad, especially in the Harold Hill estate, where we lost three seats and where the BNP topped the poll in one ward. The single gain in South Hornchurch was a silver lining for sure...

Hillingdon: another suburban borough, another poor result. We kept most of the seats in the south though.

Hounslow: one of the worst results of the entire night, although I think this may have been partially down to local factors. My advice to Hounslow Labour is to let the Tories run things for a while, sit back and relax as the inherent contradictions between Chiswick Yuppies and Feltham white-flighters unfold in a very messy way...

Islington: the shock result of the night. Did anyone predict that the Yellow Peril would lose so many seats here? Rumours of defections are swirling around and it seems possible that the red flag might fly over Islington again...

Kensignton & Chelsea: yawn...

Kingston upon Thames: tight fight between the LibDems and Tories here with a fair few seats flipping. Labour held onto two out of three in Norbiton.

Lambeth: one of our best results of the night, with good results across most of the borough. Lambeth should have a Labour council and I'm glad to see that it does again.

Lewisham: a game of two halves; the council elections were a disaster and we lost a load of seats across the board, but we won the Mayoral election easily enough. And that's what matters...

Merton: I had this down as a Tory gain, and it's a tribute to the organisation of the Labour Party in Mitcham & Morden that it's only gone NOC.

Newham: the usual sea of Red. A slightly larger opposition than for a while, but that's by-the-by.

Redbridge: nothing suprising, although the success of the BNP in Hainault was disturbing.

Richmond upon Thames: don't care about the result here.

Southwark: delighted to see Labour gains in NSB; methinks that Simon "The Straight Choice" Hughes could be in a wee bit of trouble here... but unlike Lambeth we didn't take control as we lost some seats elsewhere in the borough. In Jowell's patch I think.

Sutton: sad to see a Labour wipeout here. LibDem majority is the lowest it's been for a while I think...

Tower Hamlets: one of Labour's best results nationally, let alone in London. If you'd told me this time last year that Labour would lose Camden but hold Tower Hamlets I would have probably laughed (in a sad way). I'll cover this in more detail tomorrow, but many of the ward results were very interesting.
The main low point was the loss of Shadwell to Disrespect, but on the bright side we were miles ahead in the Bethnal Green & Bow constituency...

Waltham Forest: not a lot to say...

Wandsworth: fears of a Labour wipeout proved unfounded. I'm pleased to see that we held all three Latchmere seats.

Westminster: as always, nowt changed. Pleased to see that the author of a certain excellent site on elections was re-elected.

Tomorrow: the same for Metropolitan Boroughs. And indepth stuff of a couple of ward results...

Quite a mixed picture

2006-05-05T17:03:00.000-07:00

Just a few quick notes before a proper post in the morning; my overall prediction seems to have been about right, although I was wrong about how many seats we'd lose.

The highlights for me were Manchester, Bradford (after a nervous first few minutes) and Tower Hamlets (eventually. Early on it was looking grim indeed)... and also seeing Wigan and Barnsley flatly refusing to comply with what London based hacks wanted...

Predictions? Sort of...

2006-05-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

I can't say that I'm at all optimistic about the local elections, not after last week, but the turnout is encouraging for local democracy IMO.

Anyways... I feel very pessimistic about London, and think that things will get very nasty in a couple of boroughs. Not 1968, but grim all the same (although there might be the odd high point here and there).
Outside London, the picture is mixed. It'll be bad in some places, but on the whole not a lot will change (quite a few controls of councils might though, but that's often more politics than elections IMO) as times were not exactly brilliant for Labour when these councils last voted. I might cover a couple of council's results in reasonable detail.

As for national stuff? Labour to lose c.400 seats nationally. With a very high % of those losses being in London.

If you've not voted yet... you still have a few minutes to do so.

Polling day is here!

2006-05-04T03:55:00.000-07:00

Obviously not expecting all that much good news, not after last week, but that doesn't stop local elections being very interesting.
Predictions coming in a few hours, but in general I expect (on balance) relatively little to change outside London, and for us to do badly in London...

Oh and if your in a borough or UA or district or whatever up today; go out and vote.

BNPanic

2006-04-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

May I take a little time to point a few things out?

That roughly a quarter of people have, do or might vote BNP is really not news... in fact it's been a consistent pattern for quite a few years now. It's not actually as disturbing as it may first seem; ask a similer question about Labour or the Liberals and the numbers will be anywhere between the low '70%'s and the high '50%'s (overall numbers obviously vary from pollster to pollster) and ask a similer question about the Tories and the number will be in the '50%'s or so. And in the case of the Greenies, it's usually in the high 40%'s.
In other words, such a question really doesn't tell us much... it doesn't even give much of an indication of maximum possible support if everything perfectly for the party in question. What it does tell us though, is that 75% of the population will not even consider voting for the BNP (a figure that has also been very consistent for the past few years).
In other words, this is not something to lose sleep over (and if it is, then, well, you should have been losing sleep for the past five years or so). I think that 25% of people have given some thought of maybe voting for the BNP is not good news (not good news at all) but at the same time we should realise that these numbers could easily be far worse.
They are in many other European countries.

Easter II

2006-04-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

Turns out I didn't have time for a long-ish post on this after all. Ah well; such things do happen.
But I do feel that (even though I am no Anglican) it should be mentioned to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that certain things that he said today will probably be more than ever-so-slightly counterproductive... as he should know by now, the easiest way to make sure that sales of a controversial book of a somewhat religious nature soar, is for a man in a dog collar and/or a mitre to publically complain about it...

Irritation

2006-04-16T03:23:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who's more than just a little bit irritated by the Sunday Papers today?
It would have been nice if they had stopped printing their usual foul diet of malicious gossip, dubious/fabricated "leaks", misguided comments from various Ministers, undercover "investigations" that no one but themselves really care about, and flat-out lies... just for today? And this isn't just the complaints of an irritated Christian... even if I wasn't one, it would be nice to have just to have a little break in the endless swirl of Sunday Papers rubbish...

Easter

2006-04-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

"I will be with you always, to the end of time."

A sizeable post is likely later today

Bittersweet

2006-04-14T15:28:00.000-07:00

It's finally happend; Sunderland have been relagated. I'm not as depressed about it as I thought I would be, after all it's been on the cards since last autumn...

...but on the bright side, we somehow managed to pull off a draw against Man United :-)

Good Friday

2006-04-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

I'm not really in the mood for contemplating the meaning of Christ's crucifixion at the moment (although I was this morning) but I still feel that I should add something:

Eli Eli lema sabachthani?

Local By-elections

2006-04-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

A mixed picture last night, and generally more about Con/Lib swings than anything else, but there were some good signs for Labour; we came very close to gaining a seat in Durham City off the LibDems (and the swing was about 11pts; a good sign for sure) and we also gained a seat in Copeland off the Indies.
Other than that, not much of interest from a Labour point of view, but the Con/Lib swings were quite interesting; the Tories did well in the Southeast, but the LibDems did better elsewhere, gaining a seat in Alnwick DC (on a very high turnout for a local by-election) and coming very close to a shock win in Blaby DC.
Meanwhile UKIP did well in some seats up in the bit of Lincolnshire inbetween Boston and Skegness (they finished second in both). Both seats are safely Tory and stayed that way, 'though Labour's raw vote increased pleasingly in the one seat (but not the other).

Sloppy

2006-04-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

I just spotted a BBC article on the May local elections and being in a certain mood, hath decided to rip it to shreds...

May's local elections could be a make-or-break night for each of the three main party leaders at Westminster.
For David Cameron, the poll is the first nationwide electoral test since he took over as Conservative leader in December.

Er... these elections are very clearly not a "nationwide" test by any stretch of the imagination; not only are they local elections (and shockingly local issues are often more important in deciding local votes than Westminster gossip) but elections are not being held everywhere; not only are neither Scottish or Welsh UA's up for election, but many English DC's and UA's aren't either. The local authority within the boundaries of which I am typing this right now, is not up for election until 2007.

The Tories are the largest party in local government in England - but their powerbase is in mostly rural areas.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and another wrong. The Tory strongholds at local government level tend to be the same as the Tory strongholds at Westminster level; in other-words white collar suburbs and commuterland. Neither can be accurately described as "rural" unless the word rural is redefined to fit in with the lies of property developers.
Local politics in real rural districts is a fascinating thing though (especially the inevitable rival parties of independents) and one that doesn't get nearly enough coverage by the media.

Mr Cameron knows he has to win back support in the inner cities - in places like London, Liverpool and Manchester - to stand a chance of becoming the next prime minister

Oh Good Lord did they really write this? First off... not all of London is "inner city" and the Tories actually do rather well in some inner London boroughs (like Kensington & Chelsea, Wandsworth and also Westminster). Not all of Liverpool and not all of Manchester can be described as "inner city" either.
And, let us be blunt about this, Cameron doesn't need to win seats in Liverpool or Manchester to become P.M... John Major's Government never held a single seat within the city limits of either Manchester or Liverpool. And Thatcher only did in 1979 (in the case of Liverpool; in Manchester the Tories won Withington as recently as 1983).
And the Howard Tories did rather well in inner London last year, with a series of gains and good swings in that belt of constituencies that flow southeast from the City of London (and as such have a very high % of people in the financial "industries")... and did he become P.M?

Essentially that is but a long way of saying "we are going to focus an absurd amount of coverage on Hammersmith & Fulham"...

If his party fails to make gains on 4 May in the Metropolitan boroughs, where a third of council seats are up for grabs and in largely Labour-controlled London, Mr Cameron may find his extended honeymoon period coming swiftly to an end.

The Tories are very unlikely to make serious gains in the old Metropolitan boroughs (and they are well aware of that themselves). The translation here is that the London based media will cover London and, frankly, won't give a damn about the rest of the country.

A lacklustre performance will give ammunition to those on the right of the party who claim Mr Cameron has betrayed its core support in his rush to the centre ground.

Seeing as they've already started to do this...

A strong showing, on the other hand, will be seized on by Mr Cameron and his supporters as a sign he not only has the right message, but that it is getting through to ordinary voters.

It will also be seen as a signal that there is more to the Cameron revolution than favourable media coverage and a brief bounce in the opinion polls.

I have no doubt that the Tories will claim that they have put up a stong showing (they always do) and that they will then use that claim to claim that they are on the path to power, in touch with ordinary voters, understand the "issues that matter", blah, blah, blah... not that that actually means anything...

This bit is about the LibDems...

Failure to make progress - or a significant reduction in the party's number of council seats - will be seen as a major blow to Sir Menzies' authority and his claim to be a more dynamic and effective leader than Mr Kennedy.

Well, duh... although they will also doubtless claim that they have done well (no matter what the actual results are).

The Labour Party is braced for a bad night.

Are we? Oh, you mean in London? Then maybe. But please darlings, London is not the entire U.K...

Voters tend to use local elections to register a protest against the government.

Some voters do. But to be honest that sort of thing really isn't as common as the media liketh to claim... these are local elections not national elections dearies...

But many in the Labour Party fear it could be in line for an even bigger drubbing than might normally be expected at this stage of the electoral cycle.

I have yet to meet anyone who has anything to do with the Labour Party that actually thinks that. Then again I don't live in London, do I?

Labour was badly shaken by the loss, in Gordon Brown's backyard, of Dunfermline and West Fife, one of its safest seats, which no one in the party appears to have seen coming.

And here come the myths... Dunfermline was NOT repeat NOT one of Labour's safest seats. It had only been a safe seat since 1987 (the year when the Scottish middle classes declared war on the Tories, a constant threat in the seat before that year) and everyone knew that Squire had a big personal vote (and she deserved one as well). Call it a safe seat if you want, but to describe it as one of Labour's safest reeks of either ignorance or dishonesty.
And yes, plenty in the Party saw it coming. The only suprise was that it was the LibDems that took it, rather than the SNP.
And what in the name of God does a by-election in a middle class constituency in Scotland have to do with local elections in England?

And weeks of negative headlines about secret loans and the Tessa Jowell affair - coupled with continuing uncertainty about Tony Blair's likely departure date - have added to the sense of gloom, with all of these subjects reportedly coming up on the doorstep.

I feel like rolling my eyes now... ah yes... "on the doorstep"... anon. activists told Mr Hack everything Guv...

Party activists fear losing control of a string of local authorities in Labour's inner London heartland, where it controls 15 of the 32 boroughs.

Yeah, we'll lose control of some local authorities in London. Not certain how many, but some will go. London hasn't had a post-Iraq set of local elections after all... but it's far from certain how many will fall.

Tower Hamlets, where George Galloway's Respect Party is trying to take control of the town hall, is likely to be a particular flash point.

This means the media will focus on the borough where so many of it's offices are located this year? Shocking... (yes, Tower Hamlets will be an interesting borough. But it no longer seems like the most vunerable in London...)

Three Labour mayors in London, with large majorities, also face re-election on 4 May, in solid Labour areas.

The party is predicted to fare better - and might even gain a few seats - in the Metropolitan boroughs, where it currently controls 16 of the 36 councils.

Finally; some decent journalism.

But a bad result overall will almost certainly hasten Tony Blair's departure from Number 10, with some at Westminster seeing it as a potential "tipping point" in the story of his premiership.

Yet more pointless gossip... he'll go when he wants to (or when Gordon pushes him)... you all know that by now...

Mr Blair's main asset, for many in the Labour party, is his proven ability to win elections.

Well that certainly hasn't been much in evidence in any set of loca elections since 1997 so...

although ministers will, no doubt, attempt to write off poor performance as a "mid term" protest vote, as they did at Dunfermline

Because it would be true?

And all three party leaders will, no doubt, be ready to blame individual bad results on "local factors"

Now, now dear... that is because, and I understand that you will have trouble understanding this concept, local elections are, generally, fought on local issues. Are you familer with the concept of "local government"? I actually find it very interesting, and seeing the electoral effects of various local policies is fascinating... isn't it?

Keighley West by-election

2006-03-24T02:22:00.000-08:00

Labour 1,819 (47.37%)
BNP 1,216 (31.42%)
Con 627 (16.20%)
LDem 208 (05.38%)

Lab maj. 603 (15.95%) over BNP

Labour GAIN from BNP

I think that counts as good news; Labour are up by about 600 votes from 2004, the BNP down by about 400. Turnout good for a local by-election.

Hypocrisy

2006-03-20T15:33:00.000-08:00

While the whole loans row hasn't interested me a great deal (I don't like the secrecy involved, but that's my only real worry, and I'm glad that secret loans won't be allowed anymore) I do find some of the hypocrisy coming from the Tories somewhat amusing. The best bit is this (entirely innacurate) line from some treasurer of their's...

"We don't have patronage to give and we are not in the same position"

Hah, hah, hah.

Time

2006-03-20T15:31:00.000-08:00

Not found time for doing the thing on Wilson. Should be up tomorrow.

Harold Wilson

2006-03-16T15:58:00.000-08:00

Thirty years ago today (just) Harold Wilson shocked, well, most people, by resigning as P.M.
Some thoughts on that (and the programme on a few hours ago about the plotting against him) will be posted tomorrow.

EDIT: Aha... yes... I do intend to get this up fairly soon though...

A Taskforce Too Far

2006-03-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

It seems that every other day Cameron tries to get his mug in the papers by starting up some new "taskforce" headed up by either some over-rated celebrity or a nightmarish ghoul from the Tory past. This time he's got Michael Heseltine to "look into urban problems", something that anyone who knows anything about the horrors he inflicted upon the Docklands must find darkly comical. And to be brutally honest he didn't actually achieve anything in Liverpool; even Thatcher has acknowledged that.

But what's irritated me is the misleading rhetoric used by Cameron himself. This is what he said:

"For too long Conservatives have been seen as the party of the leafy suburbs.

"That's changing. We already run local authorities in urban areas like Trafford, Coventry, Bradford and London"

Now let's deal with this authority by authority.

Trafford

Is in fact a suburban area for the most part. It's true that it does include some inner city areas (right next to Manchester and Salford) but, ahem, the Tories don't actually have any councillers in those wards. The Tory stronghold in Trafford comes from the extremely rich (and extremely leafy) suburbs in the southwest of the borough.

Coventry

A more legitimate case can be made for Coventry; unlike most former MDC's Coventry is actually overwhelmingly urban. O/c the problem is that, technically at least, the Tories don't have overall control of Coventry City Council (they're one counciller short) and it should also be noted that after a year of defacto Tory rule on the council, Labour did very well in the city in the General Election. Go figure.

Bradford

Once again the Tories don't have overall control here; and unlike Coventry they aren't very close to getting it (they run a minority administration). And, to make things worse, Bradford MBC isn't just Bradford itself; it includes suburban areas and commuter towns to the west and also the Keighley area. Not-so-very suprisingly, Labour holds the most seats in the inner core of Bradford itself (and will probably gain more this year; the Tory councillers from those areas (largely nasty community machine politicians of the worst type) have disgraced themselves repeatedly over the past few years; one has recently been convicted of a fatal hit-and-run accident) and, as in Coventry, the Tories did badly here in the General Election (their % of the vote across the Met. District was basically the same as they polled here in the Euro elections. No comment needed).

London

Now this is just bizarre; I had always assumed that Ken Livingstone was currently a member of the Labour party. Perhaps Cameron meant the Greater London Assembly? Which hardly counts as a local authority... and on which they don't actually have a majority on eithr... or the boroughs? Well, the Tories don't actually run many London boroughs with serious urban problems, and in these boroughs the Tories don't (to put it mildly) do very well in the deprived areas.

Now, all of this seems to suggest that either Cameron is a liar, or he's astonishingly ignorant of the country he wants to lead (and worse still; the city that he lives in). Frankly I'm not sure whcih would be worse...

Christian in "believe in God" shock

2006-03-04T03:47:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4773124.stm

Why is this even news?

Two points:

1. The reactions of Reg "I'm not milking my son's death for political reasons at all, honest" Keys and that other professional mourner are as media-whorish and as predictabe as expected. Harsh? Me? Yes, but I have as much time for this sort of disgraceful manipulation of death as the voters of Sedgefield (Blair; 24,421, Keys; 4,252)...
2. The mindless, hypocritical bigotry of Evan Harris never ceases to amaze me.

Question: Is it still possible to buy yourself a seat in the Commons?

2006-02-21T04:10:00.000-08:00

Answer: Willie Rennie says YES!

Spending over £70,000 on a by-election campaign should NOT be legal (and I couldn't care if other parties have or haven't spent similer amounts in the past; this isn't partisan bitching) and the current £100,000 limit for by-elections is just a sick joke.

Bad news from Mexico

2006-02-21T03:11:00.000-08:00

Hopes fade for 65 trapped miners

Post Mortem

2006-02-10T04:43:00.000-08:00

Unusually for this sort of thing, it's fairly clear why the Liberals were able to gain Dunfermline; there were some rather high-profile divisions within Labour, Rennie ran a *very* local campaign (note that the LibDems have a strong local base in Dunfermline itself) the Tories had similer candidate *selection* problems to Labour, and finally there was some plain bad luck on Labour's part (with the job losses announced as soon as the by-election was called).

Looking at the raw votes, it's pretty clear that (once again) Labour were unable to get out enough of their core vote in a by-election and also lost a few votes to the Liberals (not many, but when combined with other factors, enough), while the Liberals were also able to peel off a few votes from the SNP and also take close to *half* the Tory votes from the last election (note that due to the Tories candidate troubles this probably wasn't all down to tactical voting). Oh well... at least the Nats didn't win. And McAllion lost his deposit as well... as for national implications... beyond cheering up depressed LibDems I don't think there will be *that* many; it's quite clear that the by-election wasn't decided on "national issues" for one thing. It's possible that it might have some effect on Gordon Brown (who's seat is next door after all) but that's not certain; beyond short term bitching I don't think much will change as far as that goes. Maybe not; wait and see I guess. That said I think this raises questions about Labour's problems at getting out the vote in Westminster by-elections; the machine is good in General Elections so why not in by-elections? It's pretty clear that there's a problem and I hope it gets fixed.

One other thing; the media have been doing their usual trick of painting the seat as a "heartland Labour area" and so on; this isn't true.
Dunfermline & West Fife isn't quite the seat that it's location inbetween Clackmannanshire and the Little Moscows would suggest; in fact (going off labour market statistics here) Dunfirmline itself is pretty middle class these days (with the exception of parts of the east of the Burgh and the run down town centre) and the West Fife villages are pretty mixed. Only the Rosyth/Inverkeithing area looks to be solidly working class (and that's due in part to a Defense presence). In other words, the seat has the demographics of a seat that leans towards Labour rather than that of a safe Labour seat; and that's what it usually was from it's creation in 1974 until the big win in 1987.

Dunfermline

2006-02-09T16:53:00.000-08:00

When I was a boy I was brought up not to swear (much). Please excuse me:

F***

Ah... feel better now... I might post a post-mortum tomorrow or I might decide not to... depends... hmm... a question to ponder: Labour's General Election machine is pretty good all told. But it increasingly looks as though our by-elections machine is dire; once again we lost because we couldn't convince our voters to head to the polls. Something has to get done about this...

Oh and more Canada stuff will be posted tomorrow as well...

Canada 2006: Analysis part I

2006-01-24T07:49:00.000-08:00

Part One; the Atlantic

Newfoundland and Labrador

An impressive showing by the Tories resulted in the Newfies popular vote gap between them and the Liberals shrink to just 0.15% and three seats out of seven. The return of some very familer old voting patterns seems to have happend, with easy wins for the St John's Tories and the solid gain of Avalon by maverick Tory Fabian Manning. The Liberals easily held on to Bonavista–Gander–Grand Falls–Windsor, but caming shockingly close to losing in Random-Burin St George's (which, for those interested in the link between politics and demographics, has a large Catholic minority).

P.E.I

Once again the Liberals took all four ridings and took over 50% in all of them. Not much else to say really.

Nova Scotia

The Liberals managed to put up a strong defense here and somehow managed to avoid losing any seats (and in a province in which they were wiped out in in 1997!) easily beating off a strong NDP challenge in Dartmouth-Cole Harbour and doing the same to a Tory challenge against ex-PCer Scott Brison in Kings-Hants. The rural swing riding West Nova was a much tougher fight with Robert Thibault hanging on by a couple of hundred votes.
The rest of the results were fairly predictable (with the voters of Halifax apparently disagreeing with Peter MacKay's claim that former NDP leader Alexa McDonough should stick to her knitting) with the possible exception of Central Nova, where the NDP cut MacKay's majority down to about 8%.

New Brunswick

The New Brunswick results were similer to the Nova Scotia results; with the exception of Tobique-Mactaquac (a very conservative rural riding narrowly gained by the Tories off rightwing Liberal Andy Savoy) the Liberals were able to hold off the Tory threat very sucessfully, even in traditionally Tory ridings like Fredericton and Saint John. There was also a tough fight in Madawaska-Restigouche (which is, after all, more of a Quebec riding than a New Brunswick one).
Meanwhile former miner Yvon Godin made mincemeat out of yet another "star" Liberal candidate over in Acadie-Bathurst...

And the results are in...

2006-01-24T07:07:00.000-08:00

...and over twelve years of Liberal rule in Canada has come to an end. This wasn't the wipeout that it could have been (enough embattled Liberal M.P's won enough narrow victories to keep the Martin ship above the hundred mark) but it was a clear defeat for the Liberals in general and a personal defeat for Martin himself. At the beginning of the campaign it was his election to lose; and lose it he did. This election saw the worst Liberal campaign in over a decade and the second lowest share of the popular vote for the Liberals since Confederation. His political career is dead and, to his credit, he knows it himself.
But to what extent is this a Harper victory? Not much; despite everything he only has a narrow minority in Parliament and it's possible that his time as P.M could be measured in months rather than years. Still, if this election has taught us anything, it's not to underestimate him.
As for the other two... Layton has led his party to it's best showing since the '80's and one that is pretty good by historical standards. But despite that he might still want to have a few words with the people who drew the Saskatchewan riding boundaries (although if this election was a personal defeat for Martin, it could be argued to be a personal victory for Layton; what with Chow finally winning in Trinity-Spadina). And as for Duceppe... so near, and yet so far. He entered this campaign with the symbolic milestone of 50% of the vote in Quebec within his sights... and finished with 42%. The gains made off the Liberals were more than ofset by the losses to the Tories; many of which happend in seats considered to be safe just a few weeks ago.
Interesting times are certainly ahead of Canada.

Canada 2006... yet more predictions!

2006-01-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

I won't be able to finish the seat by seat thing; I had meant to do it today, but for several reasons (including being very tired) I've not been able to... much to my irritation might I add... that said here's predictions for some races that could be interesting...

Beaches-East York: Tossup
Etobicoke-Lakeshore: Not sure whether this should be Liberal or Tossup... it's a real shame that no one polled this... I'll go with Tossup to be on the safe side...
St Paul's: Call me crazy, but I think this'll be close. Tossup (with a large expectation that I'll be wrong...)
Hamilton East-Stoney Creek: NDP gain from Lib
Newmarket-Aurora: Con gain from Lib. Bye, bye Belinda...
Jeanne-Le Ber: Tossup
LaSalle-Émard: Lib hold... but humilatingly close
Outremont: Tossup
Pontiac: Con gain from Lib
Fredericton: Tossup
Dartmouth-Cole Harbour: Tossup
Avalon: Tossup; if the Liberals lose, things get very grim indeed for them...

In general I expect to see the Tories to come close to sweeping SW Ontario (maybe no Liberals left? Not likely but... imagine SW Ontario being just blue and orange though) and making some decent gains in the 905 suburban area; I think there may be a chance of some big Liberal majorities falling there. I think that the BQ will fail to crack 50% in Quebec; not sure by how much. The Tories might just win a handful of seats, or they could shock us all and hit double digits there. Even old Peg Leg's former fief is in danger apparently; if it falls it'd be a big, big symbolic blow against the Bloc.
So... I expect Prime Minister Harper; yeah, so does everyone. Majority or Minority? Uncertain; hinges on Quebec I think. Opposition leader? Uncertain; could be Martin (not for long though). Could be Duceppe. Could even be (albeit very unlikely) Layton. Will Dithers himself go down to defeat? Seems unlikely... but not totally out of the question. Are my predictions any good? Not sure; I only let optimism creep in twice and pessimism never, if that helps. I do expect to be wrong on more than just a few guesses.
In a few hours I will awake and find out to all, well probably all, of these questions. And then it will be time to go into analysis mode; the best part of an election...

Canada 2006: Predictions part II

2006-01-22T06:55:00.000-08:00

Alberta

Edmonton

Edmonton Centre: Con gain from Lib
Edmonton East: Con hold
Edmonton-Leduc: Con hold
Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont: Con gain from Ind
Edmonton-Sherwood Park: Con hold
Edmonton-Spruce Grove: Con hold
Edmonton-St Albert: Con hold
Edmonton-Strathcona: Con hold (although it might be tight)

Calgary

Calgary Centre: Con hold
Calgary Centre-North: Con hold
Calgary East: Con hold
Calgary Northeast: Con hold
Calgary-Nose Hill: Con hold
Calgary Southeast: Con hold
Calgary Southwest: Con hold
Calgary West: Con hold

Rural

Crowfoot: Con hold (and probably by biggest majority in Canada)
Fort McMurray-Athabasca: Con hold
Lethbridge: Con hold
Macleod: Con hold
Medicine Hat: Con hold
Peace River: Con hold
Red Deer: Con hold
Vegreville-Wainwright: Con hold
Westlock-St Paul: Con hold
Wetaskiwin: Con hold
Wild Rose: Con hold
Yellowhead: Con hold

Saskatchewan

Battlefords-Lloydminster: Con hold (Pankiw probably in second though)
Blackstrap: Con hold
Cypress Hills-Grasslands: Con hold
Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River: Tossup
Palliser: Tossup
Prince Albert: Con hold
Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre: Tossup
Regina-Qu'Appelle: I'll stick my neck out and say a narrow NDP gain from Con.
Saskatoon-Humboldt: Con hold (assuming that Pankiw's vote from last time breaks their way)
Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar: Tossup
Saskatoon-Wanuskewin: Con hold
Souris-Moose Mountain: Con hold
Wascana: Tossup
Yorkton-Melville: Con hold

Manitoba

Winnipeg

Charleswood-St James-Assiniboia: Con hold
Elmwood-Transcona: NDP hold
Kildonan-St Paul: Con hold
Saint Boniface: Tossup (never thought I'd be writing that...)
Winnipeg Centre: NDP hold
Winnipeg North: NDP hold
Winnipeg South: Tossup
Winnipeg South Centre: Tossup

Rural

Brandon-Souris: Con hold
Churchill: Tossup
Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette: Con hold
Portage-Lisgar: Con hold
Provencher: Con hold
Selkirk-Interlake: I'll be optimistic and go with a Tossup

Canada 2006: Predictions part I

2006-01-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

When I did predictions for the 2005 U.K election I did very well in Northern England (with two major exceptions; Grogan somehow hanging on in Selby and getting the yuppy/student influenced seat we were in trouble in wrong; I thought it was NUT "Central", but it turned out to be Withington. If I'd bothered to double-check the demographics of both I wouldn't have got that wrong...) but made more than just a few mistakes for the south (New Forest East a tossup? In retrospect I can't believe I fell for that...) although the overall pattern weren't bad.

British Columbia

Vancouver Island

Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca: Tossup
Nanaimo-Alberni: Tossup
Nanaimo-Cowichan: NDP hold
Saanich-Gulf Islands: Con hold (due to split vote)
Vancouver Island North: Tossup
Victoria: NDP gain from Lib (might be close)

Interior

British Columbia Southern Interior: NDP gain from Con
Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo: Con hold (might be close; doubt it)
Kelowna-Lake Country: Con hold
Kootenay-Columbia: Con hold
Okanagan-Coquihalla: Con hold
Okanagan-Shuswap: Con hold
Prince George-Peace River: Con hold
Cariboo-Prince George: Con hold
Skeena-Bulkley Valley: a narrow NDP hold

Lower Mainland

Vancouver Centre: Tossup
Vancouver East: NDP hold
Vancouver Kingsway: Tossup
Vancouver Quadra: Lib hold
Vancouver South: Lib hold
Burnaby-Douglas: NDP hold (could be close)
Burnaby-New Westminster: Tossup
Delta-Richmond East: Con hold
Fleetwood-Port Kells: Tossup
Newton-North Delta: Tossup
New Westminster-Coquitlam: Tossup
North Vancouver: Tossup
West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country: Tossup
Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam: Con hold
Richmond: Tossup
South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale: Con hold
Surrey North: NDP gain from Ind (no idea how close or not)
Abbotsford: Con hold
Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon: Con hold
Langley: Con hold
Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission: Tossup

Note that I expect most of the *outer* Lower Mainland tossups to vote Tory; I'm not sure which and the situation out there is very confused.

Canada 2006

2006-01-16T09:26:00.000-08:00

While a lot of things are still very much up in the air, it's now looking almost certain that the long reign of the Liberals will come to an end in a matter of days. Only questions now are whether or not the Tories can win a majority... and just how badly will the Liberals do, exactly?
The latter question in particular is very interesting.

Add to that the usual fun of elections and analysing the results... and just for once my insomina might come in handy.

Intial seat predictions up soon

I Return

2006-01-15T15:07:00.000-08:00

...as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted...

I'll try to actually get round to updating this from now on. Some stuff on the Canadian Elections will be up tomorrow, and a longrunning load of stuff on the forthcoming U.K local elections will be too.

RIP Rosa Parks

2005-10-30T04:23:00.000-08:00

Not much to say really. An example of how an ordinary person can change the world forever.
May she rest in peace.

Tory leadership

2005-10-20T03:09:00.000-07:00

Not much to say that hasn't been said. Sort of.

Personally I don't like any of the candidates and wouldn't vote for 'em if I lived in their seats (but that goes for just about every Tory MP so...) but it would be nice to have a Tory leader that's capable of putting pressure on the LibDems.

As for who'll win; Cameron is the latest favourite (I can't help thinking of him as a sort of Tory version of Mark Latham actually...), Davis is sinking pretty damn quickly and that unpleasant little **** Fox is doing disturbingly well. And Clarke is out. But you all knew that.

A lot of stuff happend in September apparently

2005-10-06T04:47:00.000-07:00

In a totally random order...

Germany is probably the biggest of September's electoral stories. But it's also the most covered so there's not much point posting too much; just to say that it's yet another example of why it's a good idea not to count your chickens before they've hatched. Quite an interesting election to watch the results come in for actually.
Japan was the other biggie; the LDP's landslide was quite suprising bearing in mind the way the election was caused. The earth-shatteringly huge swings to the LDP in urban areas (especially Tokyo) are especially interesting, as are the less remarked upon relatively poor LDP showings in rural areas. Apparently this has lot to do with the whole Post Office business.
Norway was a good result for the Norwegian Labour Party and one that I enjoyed as well; it's nice to see them back in their traditional position of being the one big party as opposed to being just the largest out of several medium sized parties. And I finally found out how Hammerfest votes.
Poland once again emphatically threw out the governing party (this time round the Post-Commie SLD) although not nearly as hard as when AWS was kicked out last time round. The PiS-PO coalition could be a little fractious as Social Catholics and Free-Markety types seldom get on very well, something that'll be interesting to watch.
In New Zealand NZ Labour just about clung onto power in the face of a re-united Right, winning an historic third term. Some of the vote splitting was odd... with Labour winning the direct election in a fair few rural seats while coming second in them for the PR ballot, while the reverse was often the case in smaller urban centres (like Invercargill).
Meanwhile over here, Labour held Livingston in the by-election following the tragic death of Robin Cook with a fairly strong showing bearing in mind the bad turnout. More suprising was Glasgow Cathcart vacted by Mike Watson following his arson conviction. The expected strong challenge to Labour never emerged and former Glasgow City Council leader, Charlie Gordon, won a suprisingly comfortable victory.

There were other elections too (everything from by-elections in NSW to the first elections in Somaliland) but there's been so much it's hard to recall...

I'm back

2005-10-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

It's irritating when you lose your password isn't it? A lot's happend since a little slip of paper managed to lose itself under a floorboard and I suppose it'd be a good idea to do a little sum up of all those elections...
Now then. Where was I?

Robin Cook RIP

2005-08-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

Not a lot else to say really. He should be remembered above all for Commons performance following the Scott Report above all else IMO; his finest hour for sure.

Reflections on Hiroshima

2005-08-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

60 years ago today, an atomic bomb was first used in anger. The city of Hiroshima in southern Japan was obliterated by what was in effect a man-made firestorm much, much hotter than the surface of the Sun. Something like a 140,000 people were either incinerated instantly or died of radiation poisoning in the days, weeks, months and even years that followed. A few days later another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki with similer effects. Shortly afterwards, Japan surrendered and the Second World War finally came to an end.

Every time the anniversary of this dark day dawns, the old debate over whether or not the dropping of the bombs was justified or the right thing to do. Opponents of the bomb say that destruction on the horrific scale seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki can never be justified, while supporters of the decision say that the alternative, a land invasion of Japan by Allied forces, would have been even worse and could have resulted in the deaths of millions.

Personally I feel that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can never be justified except in relative terms; I do not think that it is possible to justify the horrific deaths of almost 500,000 people and the release of the spectre of nuclear holocaust that haunted the Earth for almost fifty years.
That the bombings of those two cities was a terrible thing to do is something that is hard to argue against. But... was it worse than the alternative? On balance, probably not.
A land invasion of Japan could have lasted for years and killed infinitely more than those two bombs did. And it seems likely that the horror of nuclear stalemate would have happend anyway; the Soviet Union would have exploded it's first atomic bomb when it did Hiroshima or no Hiroshima.
The fact that things came down to two choices as appalling as these says something about the Second World War. And why it must never be allowed to happen again.

It's Over

2005-07-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe that the IRA really *has* decided to stand itself down... although the political advantages of doing so were pretty clear for Sinn Fein (ie: REAL political power) I'd always been pessimistic and assumed that the oldies on the Army Council would carry on with nostalgia for the "good" old days...
And now the possibilty of Sinn Fein ministers in a Paisley-led Government doesn't seem as much the stuff of surreal fantasy as it once did...

1945-2005

2005-07-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

60 years ago today in one of the biggest upsets in British political history*, Labour ousted the Tories (led by Churchill) to form it's first ever majority government.
The (mostly benificial) legacy of the Attlee Government is with us even today (notably the NHS) so this date is worth celebrating a bit methinks, especially if you (like me) benifit a lot from (say) the NHS.

*Although the pollsters had been predicting a Labour landslide throughout the election no one, not even Attlee, believed them (as far as I'm aware anyway. Someone probably predicted it right... I dimly recall reading that a Labour candidate in Northumberland did...) Needless to say, the attitudes of British Politicians to polls has been rather different ever since (eventually).

Anyone remember...

2005-07-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

... Leanne Wood? That truely "charming" individual who ran a blatently homophobic campaign against Chris Bryant in Rhondda in the 2001 election and got crushed like a bug?
Well since 2003 she's been a "list AM" (the more-or-less unaccountable and pretty much unelected top-up AM's that serve as a sort of Affirmative Action programme for non-Labour Welsh politicians) in the Welsh Assembly and has so far achieved the important milestone of being the first AM to be ordered out of the chamber during a debate (for behavior described as "childish and offensive" by Rhondda AM Leighton Andrews).
Now she's in a "little" bit of trouble because of a leaked memo which advisises Plaid list AM's to blatently abuse the system. Here's a little extract:

"On receipt of every invitation ask: 'How can my attendance at this event further the aims of Plaid Cymru'?
If the answer is very little or not at all, then a pro forma letter of decline should be in order."

Charming, eh? She also recommended cutting back on constituency work (as it doesn't follow the "golden rule" quoted above) and situating Plaid regional offices in Plaid target seats.

Happy to report that she is likely to be the subject of an expenses inquiry and that a big reform of the list AM system seems likely.

More Terrorist attacks...

2005-07-22T04:58:00.000-07:00

...although this time round they seem to have made a mess of things, thank God.

Apples and Oranges

2005-07-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

Recently there's been some reports and stuff out saying that Iraq has increased the terrorist threat to the U.K; and suprise, suprise the media have been using this to imply that the Terrorist attacks on London are somehow linked to Iraq... something that is simply not true, no matter how you try to spin things. The bombers lived in the U.K. They seem to have been brainwashed for some time. Signifincantly they seem to have visited Madrassas in Pakistan. Nothing so far has emerged that could lead a reasonable person to assume that the murders of almost 60 innocent people had anything to do with Iraq. The fact that the only people to say so are either extremists or idiots (I was going to add "or speak with an "educated" accent, but I realised I'd only be repeating myself) says something doesn't it?
It is, however, possible to claim (and the one report apparently claims this) that a possible rise in the terrorist threat to the U.K as a result of Iraq and the Terrorist attacks on London were not linked.
Whether Iraq has increased the overall threat of terrorism to the U.K is not something I'm at all sure about; although it's a debate that would be worth having... were it not for the fact that the intellectual dishonest Canutes in the media would repeat the b*llocks about the London attacks being somehow caused by Iraq...

And the results are in...

2005-07-15T03:25:00.000-07:00

Labour have crushed the BNP in that Barking council by-election, thank God. Majority of over 800, pretty impressive in a local by-election.
In other news, the LibDems held Cheadle (and much easier than everyone reckoned). The Labour candidate lost his deposit, not that that's very suprising in a by-election in a seat like Cheadle.

More on Cheadle

2005-07-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

In case anyone is interested in the Cheadle by-election, here's some useful info on that slice of Cheshire suburbia:

*Main towns are Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme and Bramhall. Cheadle and Cheadle Hulme both vote LibDem, Bramhall votes Tory. All are very rich and very white.

*53.7% of the population are in the top three Soc2000 major groups; this is 13.2 pts higher than the national average and 15.7 pts higher than the Northwest average.

*The average earnings per week is £567.8 (£127.7 higher than the Northwest average and £92 higher than the national average)

*The unemployment rate is about 1.3% (something like 4pts lower than Northwest average)

*As far as the fairly abitary "class" groups used by market research and polling firms (in the latter case for no good reason whatsoever) the seat is in the top five for the Northwest in AB and C1 groups and the bottom five in C2 and DE groups.

*88% of the houses in the seat are owner occupied and it has the highest % of upper middle class people north of the Watford Gap.

By-election time

2005-07-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

The Cheadle by-election is tomorrow; a close race is expected between the LibDems and the Tories and apparently the media is very excited, but to be honest I don't really care who wins.
A year ago I would have done (anyone but the Tory!) but what happend in the Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South by-elections (namely the disgusting campaigning tactics used by the LibDem candidates and the equally disgusting heckling by their supporters at the counts) have changed my opinion of the LibDems a lot and in an entirely negative way.
So while I'd love to see the Tories dire by-election record (last gain was in '82) continue, I'd also love to see the repulsive Rennard and his fellow dog crappers (sorry: "followers of "community" politics") get a kicking... I suppose the only thing I'm looking for is the Labour vote (not that there's much of that in Cheadle) holding up...
I'm more worried about a council by-election in Barking though; the BNP *will* do very well in it and could pick the ward up, I only hope that there disgraceful use of the London Terror Attacks for political ends backfires badly on them. Fingers crossed...

Byers

2005-07-13T02:59:00.000-07:00

Apparently refusing to pump taxpayer money into a failing, immoral and inefficient company that should never have been created in the first place is A Bad Thing.
I disagree. Byers should be knighted for refusing to prop up Railtrack and renationalising the railways on the cheap

London Terrorist Attacks

2005-07-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, the other day a group of sadistic serial killers set off a load of bombs along London’s public transport system. As things stand right now, it seems that over 50 people were killed and over 700 injured.
One of the bombs (Edgeware Road) went off in the centre of the U.K’s largest Arab community. One (Aldgate East) at the centre of the U.K’s largest Bangladeshi community.
The people who commited these atrocities would have known that they were going to kill plenty of Muslims. It didn’t stop them.
Remember that when people try to put the blame either on Islam as a religion or on the U.K’s foriegn policy. “Little details” like that make such arguements look… somewhat contrived don’t they?
Trying to justify these attacks is like trying to justify the crimes of any serial killer; it can’t be done and should not be attempted.
But above all remember those who died and pray for them and their families.

Beginning... again

2005-07-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Ah well... I knew I could never give this up for good. Time to turnover a new-ish leaf and rant publically once more...