"Unelectable" Jeremy Corbyn Elected Yet Again

Now is surely the time to put this "unelectable" myth to bed.  Yesterday - despite the best efforts of certain members of the PLP, the media and other naysayers - Jeremy Corbyn was once again elected leader of the Labour Party.  Despite 150,000+ of his supporters being barred from voting, he was elected once again with an increased mandate (62% against 59% last time).  And once again, he won easily in every category (members, registered supporters and affiliated supporters, which surely puts paid to the constant cries from the media and PLP that he is "unelectable".

As it was, 506,438 votes were cast; 313,209 for Corbyn, 193,229 for Smith.  Had the party bigwigs not barred more recent converts to Labour (and expelled a further 10,000 or so), most of whom I assume would have voted Corbyn, the result would have been (rough calculation only) an even more emphatic victory, 71% against 29%.

The NEC of the Labour Party tried their best:

- First they tried to keep Corbyn off the ballot in the first place, which was obviously a no-goer;

- Then they purged 10,000 members or so for such behaviour as once saying that they had previously voted for an alternative party to Labour in previous elections (surely such people should be welcomed, rather than discarded?);

- Then they set an arbitrary cut-off date for members to have a vote; anyone joining since January 2016 was barred from voting (which was transparently dishonest, as it was never declared; rather, members joining the party since January were specifically promised a vote in future leadership elections);

- Then they made it difficult for some members eligible to vote, simply by not sending them a ballot and blaming it on "IT issues";

- Then - despite having barred more recent members from voting - they introduced a "sign up for £25 now to get a vote", which just seemed bizarre.  You could vote if you joined before January 2016, or as a £25 member who joined during/after August 2016, but not if you joined in between those dates;

- And not to forget that Corbyn was being constantly undermined by his own party, through mass resignations and votes of "no confidence".

In addition to all that, they had virtually all the mainstream media - the BBC, ITV, Sky (well, obviously) and all the major newspapers and online news sources vilifying Corbyn and bigging up Smith.  If ever a pro-Corbyn article appeared anywhere, it would be immediately dismissed by the rest of the media as either "Trotskyite propaganda" or "loony left propaganda".  Polls constantly appeared, apparently showing that the vote was going to be close.  I'm not sure who they asked, but if they prove so spectacularly inaccurate then they are surely worthless.  Either that, or the pollsters were deliberately skewing the results.

Despite all the above, they failed dismally.  Corbyn won easily against all those odds.

Of course, there is a counter-argument in that the current Labour membership/affiliates are not representative of the electorate as a whole, and there's undoubtedly some truth in that.  "The wider electorate will never vote for Labour under his leadership!" the media cry.  But it's a bit of a weak argument, given that Labour under Corbyn's leadership haven't actually lost any elections yet.  In the couple of by-elections their candidates have actually increased their majorities from the 2015 General Election.

Ah, but they lost (I think) six seats in the last round of local council elections, which is apparently bad for this stage of the electoral process.  That they would have needed something like 88% of all votes (rather than the 73% that they got) to gain any seats is rarely mentioned, oddly.

Jeremy Corbyn's position is now practically bulletproof and he will lead Labour into the next General Election, whenever that may be.  I would implore the rest of the PLP to get behind him now and get on with the serious business of taking the Conservatives to task, but they won't be reading this so my view will go unnoticed.  And in the main - going from their past behaviour - I don't think they will anyway; they will continue attempting to undermine him, no matter what he does or says.

Sorry for blathering on so long!  Rant over.

Eton Boys

No doubt some of you read about the Eton boys who went to see Vladimir Putin earlier this month.

There's an account of the meeting here, anyway (and in numerous other places on the internet, should you choose to search for it).

Without intending to make a political (or any other) point about it, I just want to park a couple of pictures here for future reference:

and of course

It might be interesting to look back at these in maybe a decade or so's time and see if there's anyone immediately recognisable.

Grant Shapps...

...is a very nasty piece of work indeed.

Let's start at the start.  I knew about Grant Shapps and his various online activities quite a while ago; he was one of a number of criminals trying to sell get-rich-quick work at home internet schemes. I say "trying", but unbelievably, he was remarkably successful in selling his shit and I dare say he got pretty rich, pretty quick, but I doubt anyone else did. This was when he was variously calling himself "Michael Green" (at commercial events) and "Grant Shapps" (at political events).

Grant has said that he cut off any relation to the "Michael Green" business prior to becoming an MP, but this is a lie. He was still running illegal internet schemes whilst he was an MP and was lying about it whenever questioned.

He - or one of his "assistants" - has been frantically deleting his old websites, but that just shows how stupid he is. He doesn't seem to realise that a lot of historical mirroring of the internet goes on. There's not just the Wayback Machine, Grant. There's a lot more than that you'll have to block to cover up your crimes. But you don't know where it is, do you? And nor should you, because you would almost certainly try to compromise it some way.

Anyway, Grant is obviously very paranoid. Here's what I asked him on Twitter:

I didn't get a response, although it was a polite request about something that he obviously knew about, i.e. his illegal internet activities. I expected some sort of response. I mean, is he really so out of touch with the public that he simply doesn't care how he appears online? For an "online guru", that seems unlikely. Obviously, the guy just isn't into answering questions, however vaguely posed. I thought I'd give him a bit of a push:

But he still wouldn't answer.

My final message to him was this:

And that was it. I don't think any of it was offensive and certainly not a reason to do this:

Thanks Grant. Or Michael, or whatever you're calling yourself today.

General Election 2015: General: (5) - More alternatives

Final post on this subject, promise.

CURRENT FPTP SYSTEM by country (NI excluded as always):

Wales (total 40 seats)

Conservatives 407,813 votes (27.2%) - Actual seats won:  11

Labour 552,473 votes (36.9%) - Actual seats won:  25

Plaid Cymru 181,704 votes (12.1%) - Actual seats won:  3

Lib Dem 97,783 votes (6.5%) - Actual seats won:  1

UKIP 204,330 votes (13.6%) - Actual seats won:  0

Green 38,344 (3.6%) - Actual seats won 0

Scotland (total 59 seats)

SNP 1,454,436 votes (50.0%) - Actual seats won:  56

Conservatives 449,264 votes (15.4%) - Actual seats won:  1

Labour 691,980 votes (23.8%) - Actual seats won:  1

Lib Dem 219,675 votes (7.6%) - Actual seats won:  1

UKIP 47.078 votes (1.6%) - Actual seats won:  0

Green 39,205 (1.4%) - Actual seats won 0

England (total 533 seats)

Conservatives 10,483,321 votes (41.0%) - Actual seats won:  319

Labour 8.087.164 votes (31.7%) - Actual seats won:  206

Lib Dem 2,089,404 votes (8.2%) - Actual seats won:  6

UKIP 3,611,260 votes (14.1%) - Actual seats won:  1

Green 1,073,260 (4.2%) - Actual seats won 1

FPTP Overall (total 632 seats)

Conservative 331 - Labour 232 - SNP 56 - Lib Dem 8 - Plaid 3 - UKIP 1 - Green 1

PURE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION by country

Wales (total 40 seats)

Conservatives 407,813 votes (27.2%) - Seats won under PR:  11

Labour 552,473 votes (36.9%) - Seats won under PR:  15

Plaid Cymru 181,704 votes (12.1%) - Seats won under PR:  5

Lib Dem 97,783 votes (6.5%) - Seats won under PR:  3

UKIP 204,330 votes (13.6%) - Seats won under PR:  5

Green 38,344 (3.6%) - Seats won under PR:  1

Scotland (total 59 seats)

SNP 1,454,436 votes (50.0%) - Seats won under PR:  30

Conservatives 449,264 votes (15.4%) - Seats won under PR:  9

Labour 691,980 votes (23.8%) - Seats won under PR:  14

Lib Dem 219,675 votes (7.6%) - Seats won under PR:  4

UKIP 47.078 votes (1.6%) - Seats won under PR:  1

Green 39,205 (1.4%) - Seats won under PR:  1

England (total 533 seats)

Conservatives 10,483,321 votes (41.0%) - Seats won under PR:  219

Labour 8.087.164 votes (31.7%) - Seats won under PR:  169

Lib Dem 2,089,404 votes (8.2%) - Seats won under PR:  45

UKIP 3,611,260 votes (14.1%) - Seats won under PR:  76

Green 1,073,260 (4.2%) - Seats won under PR:  23

TUSC/Left Unity (0.1%) - Seats won under PR:  1

There is a slight skewing in the England results due to the large number of spoilt ballots (under a pure PR system, spoilt ballots would have two seats of their own).  TUSC strictly speaking would only be entitled to 0.69 of a seat, so I rounded this up, the other went to the Lib Dems as they would be next closest to gaining another (well, they had to go somewhere).

Pure PR Overall (total 632 seats)

Conservative 239 - Labour 198 - SNP 30 - Lib Dem 52 - Plaid 5 - UKIP 82 - Green 25 - TUSC 1

The above two systems restrain the total number of English/Welsh/Scottish MPs to 632, but alternative systems could be used. As it would be guesswork to try to predict a result under AV, the only other obvious thing to look at is a system that generated MPs according to minimum percentage of the vote by constituency, This would reflect more honestly the views of the electorate, but would necessitate an increase in the number of MPs; most seats would have one MP, but a good number would have two and possibly even three (although this would be a bit of a freak result).

MINIMUM PERCENTAGE VOTING by country

Wales (number of seats 40, number of MPs variable according to vote share)

27.5% requirement: Conservative 17 - Labour 33 - Lib Dem 3 - Plaid 5 - UKIP 0 - Green 0  (58 Welsh MPs)

30.0% requirement: Conservative 17 - Labour 30 - Lib Dem 1 - Plaid 4 - UKIP 0 - Green 0  (52 Welsh MPs)

32.5% requirement: Conservative 13 - Labour 28 - Lib Dem 1 - Plaid 3 - UKIP 0 - Green 0  (45 Welsh MPs)

Scotland (number of seats 59, number of MPs variable according to vote share)

27.5% requirement: Conservative 10 - Labour 31 - Lib Dem 9 - SNP 59 - UKIP 0 - Green 0  (109 Scottish MPs)

30.0% requirement: Conservative 5 - Labour 24 - Lib Dem 8 - SNP 59 - UKIP 0 - Green 0  (96 Scottish MPs)

32.5% requirement: Conservative 4 - Labour 10 - Lib Dem 6 - SNP 59 - UKIP 0 - Green 0  (79 Scottish MPs)

England (number of seats 533, number of MPs variable according to vote share)

27.5% requirement: Conservative 395 - Labour 292 - Lib Dem 30 - UKIP 11 - Green 1  (729 English MPs)

30.0% requirement: Conservative 380 - Labour 280 - Lib Dem 22 - UKIP 8 - Green 1  (691 English MPs)

32.5% requirement: Conservative 365 - Labour 267 - Lib Dem 18 - UKIP 2 - Green 1  (653 English MPs)

Overall (number of seats 632, number of MPs variable according to vote share)

27.5% requirement: Conservative 422 - Labour 356 - SNP 59 - Lib Dem 42 - UKIP 11 - Plaid 5  - Green 1  (896 MPs)

30.0% requirement: Conservative 402 - Labour 334 - SNP 59 - Lib Dem 31 - UKIP 8 - Plaid 4 - Green 1  (839 MPs)

32.5% requirement: Conservative 382 - Labour 305 - SNP 59 - Lib Dem 25 - Plaid 3 - UKIP 2 - Green 1  (777 MPs)

Interesting, eh? No.  Oh well.

General Election 2015: General: (4) - Micro-Parties

Uh?

What are they?

Why are they there?

What do they think they're doing?

Why do they think that we want to listen to them?

Should we?

Let's see.

For the purposes of this post, micro-parties and independents can easily be defined - strip out the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, UKIP, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru - i.e. the main defined political parties - and look at whatever remains.

Of the micro-parties, the left-wing Trade Union And Socialist Coalition (TUSC) fielded easily the most candidates; as sometimes they stood alongside Left Unity (LU) I've treated TUSC/LU as a single party, fielding 138 candidates and cumulatively receiving 36,945 votes (268 votes per candidate). Their top ten performing candidates (Dave Nellist's 3.91% in Coventry Northwest and Jenny Sutton's 3.11% in Tottenham were notable standouts, but 10th place on the list and support is down to 1.20%) all lost to Labour candidates.

From the right, the only party standing a semi-significant number of candidates were the English Democrats in 32 constituencies. They managed 6,531 votes (204 votes/candidate) and even their best-performing candidate only managed 1.30% of the vote.  Curiously, all their top candidates all lost to Labour too.

The usual suspects (Christian Party et al, Loonies and affiliates, regionalists) also stood, but as ever made no significant inroads.  Beyond that, the only others of significance were the National Health Action Party (12 candidates, 20,210 votes, but significantly down on the last election) and most intriguingly given current political manoeuvrings, CISTA.

CISTA campaign for the legalisation of cannabis and put up 28 candidates, accumulating 6,566 votes (235 votes/candidate). Whilst this might seem as feeble as the average independent or small party, for a brand new party without a history, this could well be significant. If there is no move by the government to change the classification of cannabis before the next election - and let's face it, politicians are so shit-scared of the issue that there will be no move - there would be enormous value for them to go all-out for the next one. Most people with a CISTA candidate standing in their constituency weren't aware until they saw the ballot paper; with prior name recognition, and another five years of Tory rule, this could be a party that could build a lot of popular support.

But for the first time for a while, no independents or representatives of small parties won any seats at all. Obviously this is an idiosyncracy of our broken voting system, but it's still a bit worrying.

Next...best performing independent candidates.

Things get complicated from herein...

General Election 2015: General: (3): Some scenarios

Parliamentary MPs returned under FPTP

The winners

SNP:  1,454,436 votes / 56 seats / 49.87% popular vote / 25,972 votes per seat

Conservatives (inc. Speaker):  11,340,398 votes / 331 seats / 37.83% popular vote / 34,261 votes per seat

Labour:  9,331,617 votes / 232 seats / 31.13% popular vote / 40,222 votes/seat

Plaid Cymru:  181,704 votes / 3 seats / 12.13% popular vote / 60,568 votes/seat

Obviously the SNP and Plaid have a big advantage because they concentrate their efforts on seats in their respective countries and probably should be considered as a separate bloc.

The can't-really-complain brigade

LibDem:  2,415,862 votes / 8 seats / 8.06% popular vote / 301,983 votes/seat

Given that they were always going to be up against it after cosying up to the Tories, they did remarkably well, all things considered. If they hadn't spent the last thirty years shoring up their targets, they'd have been wiped out completely. 8 seats was a good result.

The losers set up to lose

Green:  1,150,809 votes / 1 seat / 3.84% popular vote / 1,150,809 votes/seat

UKIP:  3,862,740 votes / 1 seat / 12.86% popular vote / 3,862,740 votes/seat

The most striking thing here is that if Labour had backed the Lib Dems on the AV vote in 2012 (and won) then the Conservative party wouldn't have a majority of any description (nor would anyone else, but it does seem in retrospect a very poor decision on Labour's part).  It's impossible to tell how the election would have turned out under AV - as there isn't any data - but it couldn't have delivered a Conservative majority under any circumstances. You can pretend to know where the second, third, etc. choices would have gone, you can make a guess, but no more than that. Point is, it would have given a hung parliament.

FPTP is a great system for those in power as it artificially preserves the power base long after the support has in reality gone elsewhere. That's why Labour and the Conservatives like it...they get loads of votes from it for free.

Here's the FPTP vote:

This would have been the result under PR:

Doesn't say much really. Worse? Better?

I have other ways.

More later.

General Election 2015: General: (2) - turnout

OK...

...I think I'm happy with my election results now (I know it's months since the election, but you know, stuff) having finally got all the figures for spoiled ballots, or at least as close as I think I can get. And I've not done Northern Ireland (where apparently 0.66% of votes cast were spoiled); this is just for the 632 English/Welsh/Scottish seats.

Anyway, just some quick general stats for now:

• Potential electorate:  45,116,156
• Total votes:  30,078,383 (66.67% of electorate)
• Valid votes:  29,978,905 (66.45% of electorate)
• Spoilt ballots:  99,478 (0.33% of votes cast)

Turnout and spoilt ballots by region:

Midlands - Valid turnout 65.17% (lower than national average) - Spoiled ballots 0.38% (higher)

Eastern England - Valid turnout 67.56% (higher than national average) - Spoiled ballots 0.37% (higher)

London - Valid turnout 65.39% (lower than national average) - Spoiled ballots 0.33% (average)

NW - Valid turnout 64.32% (lower than national average) - Spoiled ballots 0.39% (higher)

SE - Valid turnout 68.55% (higher than national average) - Spoiled ballots 0.38% (higher)

SW - Valid turnout 69.51% (higher than national average) - Spoiled ballots 0.31% (lower)

NE/Yorks - Valid turnout 62.78% (lower than national average) - Spoiled ballots 0.35% (higher)

Scotland - Valid turnout 71.00% (higher than national average) - Spoiled ballots 0.13% (lower)

Wales - Valid turnout 65.65% (lower than national average) - Spoiled ballots 0.21% (lower)


Very noticeable that Scotland had (as a region) both the highest % turnout and the lowest % of spoilt ballots, but nothing much else stands out until you really look at the details.

In terms of spoiled ballots, the real standout constituency is (of course) Buckingham, the Speaker's seat. This is always a mess...other main parties aren't supposed to stand as the Speaker is meant to be impartial, but they sometimes do (this time UKIP and the Greens stood candidates) and it all adds up to a lot of people in the constituency feeling as though they have no representation.

Notably high numbers of spoiled ballots:

Buckingham - 1,289 spoiled ballots
Leicester East - 533 spoiled ballots
Luton South - 431 spoiled ballots
Leicester South - 398 spoiled ballots
Tiverton and Honiton - 378 spoiled ballots
Blackburn - 325 spoiled ballots

For perspective, the average constituency had 157 spoiled ballots.

And, if they were to count, the total of 99,478 spoiled ballots would be equivalent to 2 seats under a system of proportional representation. That's not insignificant; if this many people are prepared to deliberately spoil their ballot paper rather than not voting at all (under the FPTP system these are the only two options available to people who feel they have no party to vote for), what if there was a "None of the Above" option on each ballot paper?

If there was the opportunity to vote NONE, it would give an extra option, so it should cut the number of spoiled ballots and stop so many people voting tactically. But most of all, it would ensure that these "protest" votes are counted and included in the totals (they are not at the moment) and so give a much more accurate reflection of the vote.

Well, something to think about.

So Simon, how's that going now?

From The Independent, 12th August 2015:

Simon Danczuk is a tit.

Labour Leadership Race, pt. 6 and aftermath

The polls have closed, the votes have been counted...

...and Jeremy Corbyn wins on the first ballot by a country mile (59.5% in a four-horse race is almost unheard-of). Straight up.

Naturally I wanted to have a full breakdown of the voting, because I am a total nerd, but I couldn't quite get everything I wanted. Nevertheless, enough for some interesting stats.

Estimates of votes cast were way off, of some 540,272 eligible voters, 422,664 valid votes were cast, so a much higher turnout (78.2% rather than yesterday's 61% estimate - I thought at the time it sounded very low) than was thought.

First preference votes:

 Andy Burnham:  80,462 votes, 19.04%

Yvette Cooper:  71,928 votes, 17.02%

Jeremy Corbyn:  251,417 votes, 59.48%

Liz Kendall:  18,857 votes, 4.46%

Makes my 54% prediction (which was my most optimistic) on the first ballot look a bit pathetic really. But that's because I was still somehow convinced that some party apparatchiks would do something, to somehow stop this happening. But they didn't.

Needless to say, I'm quite excited. Plus, Tom Watson easily won the Deputy Leadership and although Jeremy's had 32 years of parliamentary experience, it's all been from the back benches, whereas Tom has been involved with the "party machine" extensively, so they should complement one another: I think they'll make a good team. That I happened to put £20 on Tom Watson at 6/4 a few months ago is immaterial here (actually, it is specifically material, in that it is a £30 profit).

Anyway, back to the Leadership election; the best thing of all is that Jeremy Corbyn won easily in all categories (full party members, affiliated members e.g. through a trade union and the much derided £3 "registered supporters"). I think that means that he's going to have to allowed a bit of time, so clear is his mandate from the party membership. The only people who he didn't get a clear majority from were the actual parliamentary Labour MPs, only 20 of whom voted for JC as first preference. Any immediate attempt by a disgrunted group of MPs to get rid of him would be greeted with outrage from the normal membership.

Here's a full breakdown of how all three groups voted:

Andy Burnham: Party members 55,698 (22.7%) - Affiliated members 18,604 (26.0%) - Registered supporters 6,160 (5.8%);

Yvette Cooper: Party members 54,470 (22.2%) - Affiliated members 9,043 (12.6%) - Registered supporters 8.415 (8.0%);

Jeremy Corbyn: Party members 121,751 (49.6%) - Affiliated members 41,217 (57.6%) - Registered supporters 88,449 (83.8%);

Liz Kendall: Party members 13,601 (5.5%) - Affiliated members 2,682 (3.8%) - Registered supporters 2,574 (2.4%).

I think the thing I was afraid of was that the naysayers would all be crowing "oh, he'd never have won without the three quid lot" but as the above figures show, all parts of the Labour Party membership overwhelming want him, except the Labour MPs themselves. However there is no possible way to fiddle the figures to make it look as though Jeremy didn't win easily. Half the party membership have given him their vote and it's a one member, one vote system. So, as Labour MPs now only count as normal members, they can't even fiddle it by giving their votes more weight.

Assuming the 20 MPs that gave JC their first preference is an accurate figure, I'll assume the other 210 voted 70 each Kendall, Burnham and Cooper, just for convenience. Even if their votes were worth 1000 times as much as everyone else's, he'd still have won with 43% overall (to actually defeat him, party MPs would have to make their votes worth 3,425 times as much as a normal vote, and not even they think they are that important).

Even odder is that members of the Shadow Cabinet started resigning even as Jeremy was giving his victory speech. This just seems petty. They didn't get what they wanted and now they're throwing their toys out of the pram. But why? JC has specifically spoken about unity and bringing all wings of the party together, so why - before he's made any sort of Shadow Cabinet decision - are they just saying "oh, we don't like you, we won't work with you"? Why restrict your options when you've absolutely no idea what he's got in mind? I suspect some of them may regret it.

He's going to get it from all barrels, from all sides, non-stop and he's not going to have an easy job. I just hope the parliamentary party will hold off with their vitriol for a bit (it's a forlorn hope, they're slagging him off already) so that he can at least be allowed to get some stuff done. But, knowing this Labour Party, they'll probably just vote against him out of spite irrespective of what they really think.

That's quite an interesting angle actually; as one of the most rebellious recent MPs, how will the whip system work? Will there be one? He's said that he wants everyone to be free to vote according to their conscience, so it would be a bit hypocritical for him to implement a whip system (unless it's a whip of gossamer). Nah, he'll get rid of it and good riddance. I've always thought it was anti-democratic and admired the MPs who defy the whip as a matter of conscience. (Actually, come to think of it, much more policy ideas are going to come from the membership rather than top-down from the top table, so there shouldn't be such a need for a whip anyway).

Oh I could go on about this all day but I wouldn't thank me. I'll come back soon though, I'm sure.

I AM QUITE EXCITE

Labour Leadership Race, pt. 5

Voting has closed...

And counting has begun! Polls and other random people are suggesting all sorts of things: an estimated 330,000-340,000 votes cast, so roughly a 61% turnout if the 550,000 total eligible members figure is accurate, low turnout from union members (so presumably a high turnout from the £3 supporters), a general consensus that Jeremy Corbyn will get most first preference votes but few are sticking their neck out to say how many, or whether it will be enough.

I might be repeating myself (not for the first time, I can't be arsed to go back and check) but I originally thought once the four candidates were finalised, Jeremy Corbyn would win the majority of the popular vote but the Labour machine would find a way somehow to not allow him to win.

Using the Ladbrokes odds (betting's still open), they have Corbyn at 1/7 (with the odds still shortening), Cooper 7/1, Burnham 12/1 and Kendall 100/1. This seems to be the general consensus of the other bookies (some have Corbyn 1/8, Cooper ranging 13/2 to 8/1, Burnham either 12/1 or 14/1 and Kendall - well, anything from 100/1 to 250/1 (i.e. no chance).

So the bookies - who react to money and aren't often wrong - make it something like:

Corbyn 96.8% chance of winning

Cooper 2% chance of winning

Burnham 1.1% chance of winning

Kendall 0.1% chance of winning

So even now I'm quite optimistic that Jeremy C. could take the thing on first nominations alone, so certain seem the bookies of his overall chances. I just have a feeling that if they thought that there was even the remotest chance of a scenario involving second or third preference votes (which could get very unpredictable indeed), they'd be hedging a bit more.

I think the result will be somewhere between:

Scenario 1

First preference votes - Corbyn 54%, Cooper 24%, Burnham 17%, Kendall 5%; automatic win for Jeremy Corbyn.

Scenario 2

First preference votes - Corbyn 46%, Cooper 27%, Burnham 22%, Kendall 5%

Kendall is eliminated and those voting for Kendall as 1st preference have their 2nd, 3rd and 4th preferences transferred to the other candidates. I don't really know where those would go but my guess would leave the next stage at:

Corbyn 46%, Cooper 31%, Burnham 23%, Burnham eliminated and lower preference votes reallocated as before. So, what proportion of Burnham supporters would have Corbyn as a second preference? I reckon that although the majority will have Cooper as their second choice, there'll be enough for Corbyn to see him over the line.

We'll find out Saturday morning, I guess. Whatever happens, it's going to be fun fun fun!

Except for Liz:

 

How Politics Works

First of all...

It's Ken! Everyone loves Ken, don't they? He's one of the Tories that even Labour supporters could probably get on with.

Trouble is, Ken had recently been up in court in a case which a Ben Fellowes had accused him of groping him in a Parliamentary office during the course of a Cook Report investigation into Cash for Questions (or Bombs or whatever it was at the time). Fellowes was actually 19 at the time, but was pretending to be 15, which is presumably where the charge originated.

Then Ben Fellowes was acquitted of "perverting the course of justice", i.e. lying about it. So where does that leave us? And where does it leave Cuddly Ken?

Enter Lord Janner and a seemingly unrelated series of cases:

From the CPS report:

"The Crown Prosecution Service stated that the case met their evidential test for prosecution and they would have otherwise have prosecuted on 22 counts of indecent assaults and buggery, against nine persons which are alleged to have occurred between 1969 and 1988."

However, as Janner was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2009 and it has apparently progressed to such a point where his evidence could not be relied upon in court, all that can be done is a "trial of the facts", in which he will be undoubtedly found guilty.

Since the Ben Fellowes acquittal, another man has come forward claiming that he was molested by Ken Clarke when he was 14. You may not have heard much about this - not a lot of detail has been released - but mainly because...

Enter Harvey Proctor! (see last post).

Harvey Proctor: "not a paedophile"

And who's talking about Ken Clarke now? No-one.

If it needs to be kept SO secret...

...you probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

And it would be a bit mad to bring new attention to it, wouldn't it, Harvey?

I think most people had completely forgotten about Harvey Proctor until the last couple of weeks. I dimly remember the case from the late 1980s; he was convicted for paying for sex from underage boys, but I had to look up the details of the case to fill in a lot of blanks.

He was convicted for sex with "17-20 year old male prostitutes" when the age of homosexual consent was 21. Now the age of consent is 16, that would not be a crime.

Point is, why is he holding press conferences to insist how he is not a paedophile? As far as I am aware, nobody was accusing him of such in public...so why such a vehement public denial? He says "homosexual witch hunt" but that's just flim-flammery to try to cloud the issue if you ask me.

No, this seems more orchestrated; by holding his press conference and graphically describing the acts that the police have interviewed him about (note: not accused him of), he's trying to ensure that any future trial into whatever he's really been up to these last thirty years is compromised.

I can't see any other reason to put his own name out there with the inference - quite deliberately, I'm sure - that the police are trying to tie him in with the wider Parliamentary paedophile ring. He obviously knows that he's on solid ground refuting it, which is unsurprising - not everyone could have been part of it - but as far as I'm aware, nobody but he and the police knew that he was being interviewed in conjunction with it at all. Now, after his press conference, everyone knows.

It's all very confusing.

Labour Leadership race pt.4

Still two weeks to go

...and the Labour party machine are getting a bit desperate now.

The Modern World

by Tom Tomorrow

Trident

Should it be renewed in full at a cost of £30 billion?

Or should there be a cut-down version coming in at roughly half that amount?

Or something else? Or nothing at all?

Growing up in the 1980s, the threat of nuclear destruction was still quite real; as a teenager I remember being totally freaked by "Edge Of Darkness" (wouldn't mind seeing that again) and then of course there was Chernobyl around the same time, plus Reagan had his finger on the nuclear button...

But how real a threat is it now? It would be insane for any country to launch a nuclear strike against any other, simply because the consequences would be far graver for the aggressor. There's enough nuclear weaponry in the world to destroy it several times over and surely anyone with half a mind would realise that initiating a nuclear conflict would not only be suicidal for themselves, but probably most of the rest of the world too, whether they liked it or not (probably not).

The UK hasn't got £30 billion to blow on a weapons system that will almost definitely never be used, so I say let's just pretend we've renewed it, and it's better than ever. Who's going to ever find out that it doesn't exist? No-one, that's who.

England vs. Scotland

What to do, eh?

Today the Scottish Assembly voted unanimously to extend voting in local and Scottish Parliamentary elections to 16 and 17 year olds; coincidentally today a cross-party mandate to extend voting in the (eventually) upcoming Euro referendum to 16 and 17 year olds was roundly defeated in the Commons.

Allowing 16 and 17 year olds to vote in the Scottish independence referendum proved a success, I think, and certainly gave the lie to the assertion that young people aren't interested in engaging with politics - the turnout amongst this age group was upwards of 80%. OK, special case with high turnout all round but still, if 16 and 17 year olds can work, marry, join the armed forces etc. then why can't they vote?

I know this is becoming a bit of a theme, but England and Scotland seem to be moving politically in opposite directions (very generally) and since the outcome of the independence referendum, this process is without a doubt speeding up. Scotland is passing laws that can be generally described as "socially progressive" while England is passing laws that can generally be described in the opposite terms.

At the risk of becoming a conspiracy nut (I'm a sucker for a good conspiracy theory, but I don't believe most of them), I'd venture to say that this scenario has been engineered deliberately.

Prior to the Scottish Independence referendum, there was lots and lots of talk about how it might affect Scotland and the knock-on effects for the other nations (rUK as they came to be known) and was there enough oil and what if the oil price drops and ah! but there's more than just oil and ah! but but this is just based on supposition and forecasting and what if this happens etc. etc. Probably far too much talk really. But it certainly got a lot of Scottish people who wouldn't normally have even a passing interest in politics discussing what can be very complex economic and social issues. I would venture to say that the Scottish electorate is far more engaged and far better-informed than that of the rest of the UK at the moment.

Now, if I was David Cameron (or any other Tory leader since about 1970) I'd be desperate to ditch Scotland on purely electoral grounds. It would get rid of (at the time) about 40 Labour MPs at the cost of 1 Tory MP; how could he not want that? It's not as though he has a sense of social responsibility or anything, it's about WINNING.

But instead of that, Labour joined together with the Tories (and by extension, the Lib Dems) in the "Better Together" campaign to combat the SNP.

Why? I still can't figure it out. To anyone with a passing interest in politics, it makes no sense. The logical sides in the Scottish yes/no debate should have been SNP & Conservatives vs. Labour and everyone else. I can't believe that Labour were naive enough to buy Cameron's rhetoric about the Tories genuinely being behind the union (although it's certainly true that - as a Unionist Party - they must pretend to be). They must have been fucking furious that the Conservatives got involved, full stop.

I'm no prophet or seer but it was completely obvious to me that this would kill Labour in Scotland in the forthcoming General Election (it would have also killed the Lib Dems, but they'd committed electoral suicide in all areas four years' prior anyway by joining up with the Tories in a blatant short-term power-grab). Lo and behold, a year later, the SNP take 56 of 59 seats running on a broadly centre-left platform, while Labour lose 40 seats, retaining only 1.

Meanwhile, in England, the Tories, running on a broadly centre-right platform, are cleaning up in the old Lib Dem constituencies (no surprises there), virtually taking the entire South of England up to Stoke. London and the North of England, meanwhile, remain largely resistant to Tory charms and follow a voting profile more similar to that of Scotland (except there's no SNP to vote for).

Oh, I don't know where I'm going with this. Often I start things thinking that I have a point in mind but in the process of trying to get to the point, I forget what the point is.

General Election 2015: General: (1)

I like data.

I like messing around with numbers and statistics and seeing how changing one small thing can have ripple effects that are often completely counter-intuitive.

As for elections, I love them as well. And with me going a bit mad when I did, it gave me the perfect opportunity to give it a good fucking going over. In particular I thought it would be a good time to have a look at the micro-parties and the number of voters they can attract and why, plus I wanted to get an idea of the proportion of people who would deliberately spoil their ballot as a protest, rather than simply abstain.

Except I just assumed my data was right on the night and it turns out it wasn't, I had all my electorate numbers mixed up and all sorts and am still trying to sort them out now. Did you know the actual electorate isn't confirmed until the day of the election? I didn't until this year, I thought it was decided well in advance by the Boundary Commission (which it is geographically), but the population within those boundaries is updated right up until election day...who knew, eh? Makes sense I guess.

Anyway, I'm now trying to get a grip on the spoilt ballots. It's a fucking pain in the arse, because while they're counted, they're never reported and you have to trawl through all the individual council websites to try to find them from the actual declarations. AND on top of that, some councils keep record of the number of ballot papers issued, but not a record of those returned, so it's all very confusing when the figures don't add up as they should; sometimes non-returned papers are recorded, sometimes they're not. Some don't bother mentioning the minor parties, some do, some don't give a figure for the active electorate, some do, some do give an electorate figure but no turnout figure, some do it the other way around and so on AND SO ON. I've had to infer a few, but with the sorts of numbers we're talking about (typically around 150-200 per constituency) that shouldn't make a deal of difference.

Mind you, I would like to get it as right as I can. I've split the Independent/Other votes into sections too (e.g. localism, electoral reform, etc.) and want to try to get a handle on that too.

While I'm still messing around trying to compile the data (did I mention that not all sources are consistent? No? It doesn't help) I don't want to post anything definitive. But I'm pretty confident that a party consisting of those on the electoral register who didn't vote, that party, yeah that party would win a majority pretty much every time.

[Edit: just done a quick & dirty run through and if a new parliamentary party had been set up at the last election and had 50% of non-voters randomly allocated to it in each constituency, it would have had over 7 and a half million votes and would be the third largest party by voter preference. But under FPTP, it would have just 5 seats.]

...and part 3

I forgot to mention...

...that Jeremy Corbyn, unlike the others, seems sincere and genuine and actually believes in what he's saying. I think some of the others just say what they think will get them the most votes, whether they believe it or not.

And he's refusing to slag off the other candidates. He wants to bring a mood of reconciliation to the debate and make it about ideas and policies rather than personalities and insults.

And I think the parliamentary Labour party may be quite shocked when they find out how much support Jeremy Corbyn has amongst the grassroots party membership. He'll not be popular with newer or more Blairite members, but if the party has managed to hold enough of its original, broadly "socialist" members, he might do a lot better than most people expect.

Finally, as a bizarre P.S., the papers are reporting that members of the Conservative Party are now joining the Labour Party in order to vote for Corbyn as a hilarious ruse! Presumably they, like much of the rest of the Labour side, think that electing Corbyn as leader would effectively end the Labour Party for good.

Fine, let them, the more the merrier. It proves that they are not afraid of a Corbyn leadership and I think that's a mistake. Granted, that's just my opinion, but from what I've seen, he wouldn't be afraid to denounce the PM and Chancellor's lies about the economy. And in general I think he'd make mincemeat of either of them on pretty much any subject.

Labour leadership race, pt. 2

Further to a few posts ago...

...and to be my surprise, Jerermy Corbyn succeeded in getting his 35 nominations (almost literally at the last minute), so will join Andy Burnham (odds 4/6), Liz Kendall (5/2) and Yvette Cooper (7/2) in the leadership race, albeit as rank outsider (20/1 on Ladbrokes when I checked last night). He's already acknowledged that he doesn't expect all his nominees to vote for him (he says some have already told him!) but wanted someone different in the race, which is some sort of positive sign.

It seems to be the prevalent view amongst both right and left that a Labour Party with Corbyn as leader would be electoral suicide. "No," they say, "you need someone who will blah blah blah" (much of which really means "you need someone more right-wing".

"Corbyn is hard left!" they cry. Really? He supports renationalising the railways and other previously sold-off areas of the public sector (very popular with the electorate), opposes the benefits cap (as it ignores the stupidly soaring rents in certain areas of the country and treats all cases as the same), opposes the renewal of Trident (as do the majority of the public), He resolutely refuses to pander to that small-minded sector of his party who were swayed away by UKIP at the last election, so opposes the draconian curbs on immigration that certain others (most Tories, some of Labour) are currently espousing. He (broadly) advocates rebalancing the economy through investment and GDP growth, rather than cutting state spending. He would like to see a redistribution of wealth from the very rich to the very poor. He voted against the Iraq war. I don't see any "hard left" policies there.

My point is that now that Corbyn is in the race, at least there can be some sort of meaningful debate prior to the leadership election itself. Without him, the other three would really just be arguing about nuance (except perhaps Liz Kendall, who comes across as a bit flightly to me and could be prone to wild swings of opinion).

Perhaps - as I've mused in earlier ramblings - it's me that's hopelessly out of touch. Maybe the politics of this country have shifted so far to the right that what I regard as sensible, fair, centre-left policies are now seen as rampaging Marxism. The perception by much of the media of Andy Burnham as left-wing speaks volumes I suppose. And in any case, he's still trying to wriggle his way out of his responsibility for the PFI deals set up when he was Health Secretary (I'm sure we'll hear more about that later). I don't see him as left-wing, Cooper and Kendall even less so.

I think there's been this collective buying-into the idea that government spending is bad, so cuts are inevitable, whereas I think there are other ways. At least now we'll get to hear the other side of that argument as well as the other three arguing amongst themselves about how big the spending cuts should be.

Probably the consensus is right, a Labour Party with Jeremy Corbyn as leader would be unelectable, but a lot can happen in five years. Also, since the rules of the leadership contest changed (no block vote for the unions) to one member one vote, the power of normal members is surely increased enormously? I only need to pay £3 to become a voting member for the Labour Party...I might just do that, as I would definitely vote for a Labour Party that had Jeremy Corbyn as leader, rather than fudging about with Lib Dems and Greens.

George Osborne - is he mad?

Or is he stupid?

(I'm taking it for granted that he is greedy, dishonest and self-serving).

I can't remember if I've ranted on about this already but what the hell. I just can't get my head around what he's trying to do.

First of all, he has pledged not to increase the rate of VAT, income tax or National Insurance during the lifetime of this parliament. Given that this represents two-thirds of government income, that's unnecessarily hamstringing himself (unless he can see the future, which he can't). I mean, he could do that, but why do it? It's bizarre. Why rule out your three main revenue-earners when you have absolutely no idea where the economy is going?

Next, he wants to put into law that the government must run a surplus every year, i.e. make it illegal for the government to have a spending deficit "during normal times" (which seems to me a vague enough catch-all to ensure that the question never comes up; all we know about this definition of "normal times" is that periods of recession are not "normal times"). Given that the government has managed to produce a surplus less than ten times in the last hundred years, I've a feeling that the definition of "normal times" might become a bit difficult to pin down.

OK, let's say he's adamant on those points, including making deficits illegal, what happens if - heaven forfend! - Georgie's fiscal forecasts prove nonsensical and he suddenly is faced with a shortfall of £100m? Where will he get it from? There'd ususally be other options here, i.e. grow the economy (but that's obviously not an option if he's faced with a shortfall) or borrow the money (like normal governments would) but that's illegal now, so it's either:

1. Make up the shortfall by increasing the other taxes. Corporation tax and business rates - the next biggest contributors to government income - no chance. So things like fuel, tobacco and alcohol duties would all have to seriously rocket.

2. Cut government spending like crazy. Where though? Not pensions. Not the NHS (unless he wants it to completely implode). Not defence, that 2% is already committed. Law & Order? Education? Transport? Even if he cut all three in half he'd get nowhere near the amount he needs. There's fuck all left in terms of public assets to flog to his City mates, which really only leaves Social Security.

I think he's backed himself into a corner here. All things considered, it's obvious that he intends to make slash in-work benefits, cap other benefits, etc. etc. I just wonder how he's going to square all the above without quite a lot of people dying.