chrishansenhome

This week elections for local councils in large British cities and in all of Scotland and Wales occurred, along with the election for London mayor and assembly. Do recall that the national government is a coalition between the Conservatives (to whom I shall refer as "Tories") and the Liberal Democrats (LibDems), with Labour, which lost the 2010 election, in opposition.

As is true in many countries, local elections in between national elections often give rise to a protest vote against the governing party/parties. And such was the case in the UK this week.

Up and down the country, the Tories and LibDems were punished, and Labour gained a number of important councils away from both parties. In Scotland, they held on to Glasgow council, which was a target of the governing Scottish National Party. The LibDems lost control of one council (net), leaving them with 6, even though their power base was built up through careful cultivation of local voters and a number of local council seats. They have dropped below 2000 local councilors for the first time in the party's history. The Tories lost many local council seats up and down the land, and control of a number of councils.

The trend did not extend to the London mayoralty election, however. Labour gained some London Assembly seats, but Boris Johnson was re-elected Mayor of London by 3 percentage points, 51.5% to 48.5%, with second-choice votes being counted. Voters got a first and second preference vote, and second preference votes for all those below the top two vote getters in the first preference were added to first preference votes to produce a majority. This is a somewhat cack-handed way of doing what the French are engaging in at the moment: their first round of Presidential voting produced Sarkozy vs. Hollande, and tomorrow they will be voting again between those two candidates only.

Now the Tories are wary of their victorious London Mayor, Boris Johnson, He has a colourful history, is considered eccentric, has had an, um, varied marital life, is wealthy, a classicist, and is considered by many to be boyish and handsome. However, national Tory politicians are afraid that Boris will challenge Prime Minister David Cameron for the leadership of the Tory party, especially if Cameron looks set to lose the 2015 general election. So his victory in London was seen as dangerous nationally. Boris has publicly eschewed any ambition for national office, in a radio interview, but one of the things that politicians do all the time is change their minds about running for various higher offices, and I would not be surprised if Boris reappears on the national scene either before, or just after, the next general election. After all, he is the one politician in the United Kingdom who has a personal mandate from voters of more than 1 million votes. It would be natural for him to segué back into Parliament.

His opponent, Ken Livingstone of the Labour Party, has had more than 30 years in local and national politics. He was leader of the London County Council (the forerunner of the London government of today) during the Thatcher years, and so enraged the Iron Lady that she abolished the LCC rather than endure his public taunts from across the Thames. He slid into Parliament as MP for Brent during the 80's and 90's. When the Mayoralty was created in 2000, he had so alienated Labour that they did not nominate him for Mayor, as he had hoped. So he ran as an independent, and won. Blair & Co. held their noses and welcomed him back, and he won re-election in 2004.

Livingstone also has a colourful personal life. He has 5 children from several women, to not all of whom he was married. He is broadly favourable (in my opinion) to LGBT rights, but also invites some Muslims who are homophobic and anti-Semitic to speak in London meetings under his control. He has himself referred to a paparazzo who was following him around as a "concentration camp guard", and suffered sanctions because of that. He is a newt-fancier, thus giving rise to lots of humourous items in the opinion columns along with funny political cartoons.

He found losing to Boris quite a blow in 2008, and has been quietly running for the election ever since. He was chosen as Labour's candidate last year, over several very qualified politicians, one of whom, Oona King, is someone for whom I have a lot of respect. But Ken Livingston, like Marmite, is one of those politicians who is either hated or adored by voters. He carries a lot of baggage along with him, and has recently been in the news because he has used a company to receive speaking fees and book royalties, so that he could pay his wife as his researcher along with other part-time staff. The side effect of this is paying taxes at a low corporate rate, not a higher personal rate. He has indeed paid all the taxes for which he is personally and corporatively liable; however, his opponents smacked him hard over this, calling it tax evasion but ignoring that other politicians do exactly the same thing, including (I believe) one B. Johnson.

Now you might expect that, given the national trend toward Labour, Ken might have squeaked through to City Hall yet again. He didn't, although his defeat was much narrower than the pollsters expected. Why is this?

I contend that Boris did not win the election, Ken lost it. Through having a "history", through raising doubts about his fiscal probity regarding taxation, and through generally being a rather overexposed and tired figure, Ken lost the election that Labour might have won under a vibrant relatively new candidate such as Oona King. Alas, we'll never know this time around. There's always 2016, though.

And finally I turn to the party to which I have the pleasure of belonging, the Liberal Democrats. In elections before 2010, the Liberal Democrats benefitted from midterm protest votes from whichever side was in government. However, for those who wanted to protest in 2012 there was only one major party for which to vote: Labour. And voters (those who bothered to vote; turnout was in the high 30%s, which is low for an election here) took advantage of that opportunity and voted Labour in their thousands, protesting against both Tory and LibDem candidates, but smacking the LibDems a bit harder. Hundreds of LibDem councillors lots their seats.

In London, their mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick, who (in my opinion) was the best qualified of the three major candidates through his experience as a senior police officer, was beaten down into 4th place by the Green candidate. They lost 1 London Assembly member, to Labour's gaining 4 and the Conservatives losing 2, including one of Boris's Deputy Mayors.

Nationally the troglodytes in the Conservative party are blaming the bad result on Cameron's relatively liberal social policies, such as support for same-sex marriage. Wrong. BZZZT! You're out. People do not generally vote down people on social issues here. It's the terrible economy, mired in a double-dip recession, that did for the Tories. Being known as the Nasty Party, slapping taxes on grannies and hot Cornish pastys while lowering taxes for fat cats, is not going to be a vote winner generally. Blaming it on Cameron's generally pro-European-Union-business attitude is also stupid, but we have come to expect that from some of the receding-jawed over-bred toffs who sit on the Government benches and for whom any mention of Europe calls forth foaming-mouthed denunciations. And as for the LibDems, being associated with the Nasty Party tarred them with that nasty brush, like stepping in a pile of dogshit before going to the Queen's garden party, and stubbornly refusing to notice the odour rising from your shoes.

So, all in all, a bad result for the Tories, a disastrous one for the Liberal Democrats, and a hopeful one for Labour, whose national leader, Ed Miliband, has come in for a lot of criticism lately for a perceived charisma-deficit and for not being his brother, David, who was the favourite of Labour politicians for the leadership in 2010 but who was defeated in the contest. Now that he has a national victory under his belt, he needs to concentrate on putting forward credible national policies to deal with the debt, to deal with the recession, and to make Britons feel like their government cares about them. If he can do that, he'll be striding into Number 10 Downing Street in 2015. If that were to happen, a very savage war would break out in the Conservative Party which might result in Cameron being propelled out of the leadership by the massed feet of the reduced band of Tory MPs and one B. Johnson, who says publicly that he'd really rather not be in Parliament because he now has the job he really loves, being propelled into it.

Current Mood: analytical
Current Location: London, in my study

One of the things that people want from government is certainty. Up until very recently, elections delivered that certainty in the four oldest democracies in the British Commonwealth, as well as in the United States. In 2000, the episode of the Hanging Chads introduced Americans to the idea that the day after the election, they might not know who would be President of the United States on January 20th of the next year, at 12:01 pm.

Australia today woke up to their election results, which ended in what parliamentary democracies call a "hung Parliament" (no jokes, please! This is serious.) That is, no one party can command a majority in the lower house of Parliament. What has not been remarked upon is that all four of the oldest members of the British Commonwealth are now governed by a party that does not command an absolute majority in the lower (or the only) house of their Parliament.

The Dominion of Canada is governed by a minority party, governing alone but with the tacit voting cooperation of other parties in the House of Commons. The United Kingdom is governed by a coalition between a plurality party in the House of Commons and the smallest of the three major parties in the United Kingdom. The Realm of New Zealand has been governed by coalitions since a new voting system, mixed-member proportional representation, was put in place in 1996. They have a unicameral Parliament. The Commonwealth of Australia, emerging from an election last Saturday, faces the prospect of a coalition government or a minority government supported by independent and one Green MPs—at this writing the outcome is uncertain.

To my knowledge, this is the first time that all four of these countries have had non-majority governments at the same time. The UK had a minority government after the first general election in February, 1974. When Harold Wilson called the second election, in October 1974, he gained a majority of 3. Previously there was a coalition government in the UK during the Second World War, where Churchill was, of course, Prime Minister and a Conservative, Clement Attlee was Deputy Prime Minister and the head of the Labour Party, and the same Parliament sat from 1935, when the Conservatives won a majority, until 1945, when the war ended and Attlee demanded a General Election, which Labour won.

In 1940, the Federal election in Australia was narrowly won by the party of which the Liberal party of today is the descendant, with a majority supported by independent MPs. When two of those independents switched sides in the next year, Labour then took over the government and increased their majority in 1943. The Liberal Party governments since 1943 have all been "coalitions" between the National Party and the Liberal Party. The Wikipedia article on politics in Australia and some of the subsidiary articles, such as the one on the National Party, are most interesting in their chronicling of the fissiparous nature of party politics in Australia.

Canada has been governed by minority parties for two periods in the last 30 years or so. In the election of 1979, Joe Clark's Progressive Conservatives won a plurality, and governed alone until Clark called an election in early 1980, resulting in a Liberal government. In 2004, a Liberal minority government was elected, and then in 2006 a Conservative minority government was elected, and then reelected in 2008. The country does not seem to want to go to the polls again so soon after the 2008 election, so unless the government loses a vote of confidence in the House of Commons it seems likely to soldier on until the Prime Minister thinks it likely that a general election will succeed in returning him with a majority government.

Where am I going with all this? Minority and coalition government in democracies descended from Great Britain had usually been the exception rather than the rule. Two-party government, with each party alternating governments, have been encouraged by plurality first-past-the-post electoral systems, where the candidate with the largest number of votes in a constituency wins the seat, whether s/he has an absolute majority or not. Duverger's Law says that the first-past-the-post system tends to favour such governments, while some sort of alternative vote system tends to favour multi-party government. The United Kingdom will vote next May on whether to introduce the alternative vote system for Parliamentary elections, where candidates are numbered according to the voter's preference, in descending order. If no one wins more than 50% of first-preference votes, the candidate with the least number of first-preference votes is knocked out, and the second preferences of his first-preference voters are added to the totals of the other candidates. This continues until one candidate has 50%+1 of all votes,. based on this redistribution. It is often called the "Instant Runoff Vote", as this process is similar to holding a runoff election, without the expense of actually doing so. The plurality Conservatives are against this, as it is likely to result in fewer Conservatives being elected to Parliament. The minority Liberal Democrats are in favour, as in many seats it could make the difference between a LibDem being elected and one being a close second. Labour used to be in favour of it, but now when they are in opposition, have decided they are not in favour of it, simply to be bloody-minded.

The question in my mind is this: What constitutes a fair picture of the results of an election? If in a UK election the Conservatives get 40% of the total vote, Labour gets 35%, Liberal Democrats get 20% but the Conservatives get 45% of the seats, Labour gets 40%, and the Liberal Democrats get only 8% (not the current numbers, of course; I just picked them out of the air for illustration's sake) is this fair? Are the LibDem votes that do not result in a LibDem MP wasted if they do not help elect a LibDem MP? Is the uncertainty currently surrounding the Australian election result good for the country? Should the voting system be changed so that elections are more likely to result in a majority government?

I believe that there is one fact about coalition government that tends to make it a good government. When one party is in coalition with another, each party to the government has to temper its demands in reaction to the demands of the other party. In order to govern effectively, the coalition has to have internal debates, with give and take, negotiation, horse trading, and wheeling-and-dealing in order to formulate policy and get bills passed in Parliament. This sharpens the debate in the House itself, as debate and argument have already gone on internally. Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition often does not have this luxury, and with Labour currently eating itself alive during the leadership contest currently going on they definitely cannot take any position other than blind opposition to every proposal of the Coalition.

The unfortunate fact of coalition in the United Kingdom is that, despite all the signs with COALITION AHEAD!, BEWARE OF THE COALITION!, HANGING PARLIAMENT ABOVE!!, none of the three major parties seriously contemplated what they would do were a hung Parliament to be elected. So when they woke up the day after the election, the three leaders didn't know what to do. Nick Clegg, the kingmaker and leader of the LibDems, finally cast his lot in with the Conservatives, as together they would command a majority in the House of Commons.

A coalition with Labour would have had two major difficulties. One of them was Gordon Brown, outgoing Prime Minister, who was clearly exhausted, repudiated by a majority of voters, prone to gaffes, and unsuited to continue in office. Replacing him, however, would have produced the UK's second female Prime Minister in Harriet Harmon while Labour went through the cumbersome process (for them) of electing a new leader, who would take over. More uncertainty. The other was that a LibLab coalition would be a minority coalition, and would have to scrabble for votes from the Scottish Nationalists, Plaid Cymru, the Democratic Unionists of Northern Ireland, and a handful of independents and a Green. Labour as a whole was not up to the task of securing a majority for each bill they proposed—that kind of vote-chasing is tiring and would make government a pain for them. When John Major's majority in Parliament evaporated in 1996 through deaths and lost by-elections, he had to scramble around for each and every vote and this contributed to the weariness of his government.

Now in government, the Liberal Democrats are still holding together, just. There have been rumours in the press that Charles Kennedy, the convivial and often tired and emotional former leader of the LibDems and MP for the Scottish Western Isles was contemplating a return to the Labour Party he left years ago. These have been hotly denied. I would not say that it is beyond the pale that other LibDems on the left of that traditionally sandal-wearing and free-thinking party might not join or re-join Labour. I am certain that Labour MPs are being encouraged to socialise with their LibDem MP friends in order to sound them out on the possibility of defection.

However, all of this avoids the reality of the situation. Much quoted lately, most recently by Julia Gillard, PM of Australia, is former US President Bill Clinton's remark after the 2000 US Presidential election: "The American people have spoken but it's going to take a little while to determine what they said." In the UK and other British parliamentary-style democracies, each party runs on a manifesto (=US "platform") which sets out, in detail, what the party intends to do if it forms a majority government. What the manifestos do NOT say is what the party intends to do if no party commands a majority in Parliament and it must explore coalition with other parties.

Not only do the manifestos not say anything about this, the electorate here does not understand the nature of negotiation in a coalition government. If I had a pound for every article I've read and every news report I've seen and heard over the airwaves scorching the LibDems for abandoning their stated manifesto pledges now that they are in government with the Conservatives, I'd be able to retire. Saying these things is stupid and unthinking.

The manifesto only applies when a party forms a majority government. When a party forms part of a coalition, its manifesto becomes aspirational, a basis for negotiation between the parties that are forming the government. While one can encourage one's party to fight its corner in government, it is unreasonable to expect it to win every battle.

A week is a long time in politics (hackneyed phrase, but a true one). Who knows what will happen to the coalition here in the UK, or the government in Australia. Prime Minister Gillard may elect to continue on as Prime Minister of a minority government until and unless she loses a vote of confidence in the House of Representatives, although there is precedent for the Governor-General to dismiss a Prime Minister, it is very unlikely to happen and PM Gillard will remain as PM until and unless she resigns, as is customary in Parliamentary democracies. Prime Minister Harper of Canada has played fast and loose with Parliamentary procedures lately in order to deny opposition MPs the opportunity to investigate or call his government to account. The opposition has threatened to deny Harper the confidence of the House and force an election, but I believe they will wait until memories of the last election have faded a bit more. No one wants to go to the polls every two years in a Parliamentary democracy, and Canadians have trooped to a General Election in 2004, 2006, and 2008. New Zealand, as far as I am aware, has been ticking along nicely since the last election. But they have fourteen years' experience of coalition government, so perhaps the New Zealand government has mastered the method of making it work, while we in the UK have yet to do so and the Labor Party of Australia has yet to have to try.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Location: London, in my study

Well, the election is over. However, the shouting has just begun. The electorate has mumbled, not spoken. Labour has lost around 90 seats or so, with some high-profile losses such as Jacqui Smith and Charles Clarke, former Home Secretaries, and some junior ministers. The Tories have gained around 90 seats, some in Wales, which was surprising. The Liberal Democrats have lost quite a few seats, including Lembit Opik, the erstwhile consort of one of the Cheeky Girls, and Susan Kramer. My own MP, Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat) was returned with an increased majority, crushing the Labour candidate and leaving the Conservative in the dust. The Greens have their first-ever MP, in Brighton (the gay mecca of England).

Now when the smoke clears, the difficulty is that no party commands a majority in the new House of Commons. This has not happened in 36 years, since the first election of 1974.

For those who are not living in a parliamentary democracy with more than one possible governing party, here is the situation.

Gordon Brown is still Prime Minister. Even though his party no longer commands a majority, he gets the first try at forming a working majority in the House. This is why the electorate shoudn't mumble so much. They are mumbling "We don't want Gordon." but they didn't speak clearly enough.

The big loser of the night is Nick Clegg. There was a flurry of newspaper stories after the first debate intimating that the Liberal Democrats would do very very well indeed. The polls said the same thing. But, as usual with the British voter, s/he got into the voting booth and thought, "Oh, no, I can't vote for the Lib Dems. They can't win." This happens in every election and no one seems to have mentioned it this time. Well, the truisms of former elections seem to have held true this time.

Another surprise was the fact that many polling stations, which were required by law to close at 10 pm sharp, had long queues of people waiting in vain to vote. The doors are shut and no more ballots were given out. There were many angry voters who were not allowed to vote. The Electoral Commissioner has said that the law is clear and the Returning Officers are responsible for the orderly conduct of the vote. Some polling stations ran out of ballots, and didn't bother to get any more. Something will be done, no doubt. The Electoral Commissioner says that we have a Victorian voting system, which is true. I believe that in the United States, generally, if you are in a queue to vote when the polls close, you are allowed to vote. I think that's the only reform needed here.

So what will happen? Labour will try to form a minority government, It won't be able to command a majority and will lose a vote of confidence. However, this won't happen until the end of May. Then David Cameron will try to form a minority government, and he will probably not lose a vote of confidence. What he will try to do is get some flashy programs off the ground so that he can have another election by the end of the year—probably in October. The Liberal Democrats will sit tight and not upset anyone's applecart, hoping for proportional voting to be brought in by a referendum (under a Labour government).

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: London, in my study

I posted my absentee ballot this afternoon. Went to the Post Office on the Walworth Road and waited 15 minutes in a queue to get the thing weighed and £1.22 of postage put on it.

Feel satisfied, though. I have now done my civic duty.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: London, in my study

I got my absentee ballot from California, and joyfully voted for Obama/Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who is my Representative (and also Speaker of the House). No Senate race in California this year.

Tomorrow I will joyfully post it. I always have to put a big "To:" on the front and "From:" on the back (which has my name and address printed on it) as the posties normally send it back to me unless I do, even though the stamps are on the "To:" side.

Now we wait to see what the rest of the country will do in November.

Current Mood: joyful
Current Location: London, in my study