The Tally Room

Gordon Brown had a pretty awful year, with losses of safe seats in by-elections and massive poll leads for David Cameron's Conservatives. But since the beginning of the global financial crisis, Brown's seemingly successful attempts to get his plans adopted by other western countries,...

The latest Newspoll on NSW state politics has the Labor Party collapsing to levels even lower than seen in the last century. With the Coalition on 43%, Labor on 26%, the Greens on 14% and Others on 17%. The 2PP figures are at 59-41...

I'm hoping to write some analysis of the consequences of Rudd's climate change announcement tomorrow, but I thought you'd enjoy today's First Dog on the Moon cartoon (subscription required) from Crikey. Sometimes you have a piece of satire that captures the truth perfectly. PS. I...

Yesterday I laid out how leaders are elected in Canada and the UK, where party members play a central role in deciding leaders, as opposed to New Zealand and Australia, where leaders are elected by members of Parliament. So what are the merits of the...

After the events of the last few weeks further demonstrated the inability of Stephane Dion to remain as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Dion announced last Monday that he would resign as soon as the party chose an interim leader. Dion had...

It's been a while since I've posted Daily Show clips, so I thought I'd put up Monday night's Daily Show coverage of the Canadian constitutional crisis, I particularly enjoyed the second segment's meandering into the republic debate.

Over the last few days most of the remaining undecided seats have been decided. In CA-04 the Republican has held on, while the Democrat was elected in OH-15. In the Louisiana delayed elections last week, it appears that the Democrats could be on track...

I don't know enough about Canadian politics to do in-depth coverage of provincial elections, but I thought I'd do a wrap-up of yesterday's provincial election in Quebec. Liberal Party premier Jean Charest was re-elected as Premier. Charest was a minister in Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative...

Sky News, Foxtel and Austar announced today that they will be launching a new network, A-SPAN, modelled on the US C-SPAN, which broadcasts live, unedited feeds of the US Congress. The network will launch on January 20 broadcasting the inauguration of US President-Elect Barack Obama....

ABC Radio National’s Background Briefing program broadcast a fascinating program two weekends ago regarding the interaction of Italian and Australian politics arising...