United Kingdom Archive

Cameron cutting seat numbers in UK

By
Ben Raue
 – January 24, 2010

David Cameron, the leader of the Opposition in the United Kingdom, is planning to immediately cut the number of seats in the House of Commons following an election victory this year, according to reports.

Cameron’s plan involves immediately introducing legislation following an election which would trigger a rapid review of electoral boundaries in England and Wales in order to cut the number of seats by approximately 10%.

Electoral boundary reviews in the past have taken as long as seven years, and the new boundaries being used for the 2010 election are based on registered voter figures from the year 2000. Cameron’s legislation would give only 18 months for a new review.

The Conservatives are arguing that the cut in the size of the Commons, which will have 650 members after this year’s election, is intended to cut the cost of politics, not to achieve electoral gain. While it is probably a good idea to shrink the Commons to less than 600 seats, the costs of those 65 members of Parliament really don’t add up to a lot in the scheme of things.

There is some electoral benefit for the Conservatives in speeding up the process of boundary reviews. Strong Labour areas like the inner cities tend to be depopulating, which means that boundaries drawn using out-of-date data will tend to mean that the number of voters in Labour seats is less than in Conservative seats. Yet this is only a minor issue. The main bias against the Conservatives in the electoral system comes from the geographical distribution of Conservative voters. Labour voters tend to be more ‘effective’, spread efficiently over marginal seats, while Conservative voters are locked up in huge majorities in safe seats. This is the main reason why the Conservatives need to beat Labour by a wide margin to win a majority. No redrawing of the boundaries will fix this: all systems of single-member electorates favours one party over another.

Labour in the UK is crying ‘gerrymander’ over the proposal, although it seems that numerical fairness is on the Conservative side. It seems that the Conservative plan is a good idea, but won’t achieve any of the aims being spun by either side about removing the bias in the electoral system.

In other news, I have just finished the South-East England region in my map of the 1997-2005 electoral boundaries, which I am hoping to finish before the UK election later this year. Maps below the fold.

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Labour and SNP go head to head in Glasgow North East

By
Ben Raue
 – November 12, 2009

Result: Labour has held on against the SNP with 59.4% of the vote. The SNP polled 20%, while the Conservatives polled 5.2%. The BNP came fourth with 4.9% followed by former socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan and the  Liberal Democrats.

Voters are now going to the polls to elect a new Member of Parliament in the Glasgow North East constituency in Scotland. Vacated by Speaker Michael Martin in June after he was forced from the Speakership, the seat has seen a fierce contest between the ruling Labour Party and the Scottish National Party, the third such contest since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister.

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New electoral map of Wales

By
Ben Raue
 – October 5, 2009

I’ve just finished a map of Wales’ new parliamentary constituencies. Wales uses the same fourty constituencies to elect their fourty members of the House of Commons as well as electing fourty of their sixty members of the National Assembly of Wales.

The fourty constituencies are divided into five regions for Assembly elections. Each region elects four top-up AMs. Three of these regions cover eight constituencies, with one covering seven seats and the other covering nine.

Since these maps are used for two purposes, I have uploaded the maps as two separate files. One includes the Assembly region boundaries and seats coloured according to the 2007 Assembly election, while the other uses notional colours based on the 2005 Westminster election.

Maps over the fold.

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Latest UK map update: England finished

By
Ben Raue
 – September 21, 2009

I’m happy to report that I have now finished the English part of my UK House of Commons electoral map. I have uploaded it to the maps page, and you can download it here. This is the final version of the map as I plan to keep the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish maps as separate files. I have now started work on the Welsh map.

uk533edit

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Yet another UK map update

By
Ben Raue
 – July 26, 2009

So I’m still working on my UK House of Commons map, and I’ve reached the Scottish border! As the map below shows, I have now completed 7 of the 9 regions of England, after just finishing North West. I only have yet to do North East and Yorkshire and the Humber, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I’ve uploaded the latest version on the maps page.

uk450

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Latest version of UK map

By
Ben Raue
 – July 8, 2009

I have still been working on my map for the next United Kingdom general election in 2010. I have now finished six of the nine regions of England: South East, South West, Greater London, East, East Midlands and West Midlands. This adds up to 375 seats out of 533 in England and 650 across the entire UK. I’ve uploaded the latest version which you can download from the Maps page.

uk375

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Europe 2009 – Results wrap part 1

By
Ben Raue
 – June 9, 2009

Here is a brief summary of how the EU elections went in each country. Our first edition covers Ireland, the UK, Spain, Portugal, France and the Benelux countries.

  • Ireland - While Fianna Fail’s vote collapsed and Fine Gael’s vote rose, it didn’t dramatically alter the party’s performances. Each party lost one seat each, while Labour gained two. Sinn Fein lost their sole seat and the Socialist Party’s Joe Higgins was elected. One of the two independents was defeated.
  • Northern Ireland – Northern Ireland followed the pattern of electing one MEP from each unionist party and one from the more popular republican party, in this case Sinn Fein. However, in this case Sinn Fein for the first time topped the poll. This was partly due to the majority unionist vote being split three ways, with former DUP MEP Jim Allister running on the Traditonal Unionist Voice ticket.
  • Great Britain – Labour’s vote collapsed, losing 7% and coming third on 15.7% behind the Conservatives and the UK Independence Party. UKIP kept its vote steady at just over 16% while gaining an extra seat, while Labour lost 5 of its seats. The Liberal Democrats also suffered a 1.2% swing and lost one of their seats. The Green party gained 2.4% and came close to winning a number of extra seats but ultimately only managed to maintain their two seats. The British National Party managed to elect two MEPs in the North of England. Labour was beaten into second place in Wales for the first time in 91 years, and were also defeated by the Scottish National Party in Scotland. Labour came fifth behind the Conservatives, UKIP, Liberal Democrats and Greens in both South-East and South-West.
  • Portugal – The centre-right Social Democratic Party recovered from its massive 2004 defeat, winning 8 seats to the 7 seats won by the centre-left Socialist Party (which had won 12 in 2004). The Left Bloc gained two seats while the other two minor party coalitions maintained their existing two seats.
  • Spain – The 2004 election took place shortly after the election of the new Socialist government and the Madrid train bombings, and were a major defeat for the centre-right. This time around, the governing Socialists suffered a 5% swing while the People’s Party gained 1%. Overall, due to the reduction in MEPs, this resulting in the Socialists losing 4 seats and the People’s party losing 1.
  • France – The French result was a major victory for Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) who gained an 11.2% swing to poll almost 28%, which gave them four extra seats. The opposition Socialist Party lost 12.4% of its vote, falling to 16.5%, which cut their number of MEPs from 31 to 14. The result was very strong for the Greens-led Europe Écologie, which polled more than double the 2004 Greens vote, winning 16.3%, almost overtaking the Socialists, and winning 14 seats (up from 6 in 2004). The centrist Democratic Movement lost one third of its vote and half its seats in comparison to the former UDF party. The far right National Front suffered similarly, losing 4 of its 7 MEPs. Socialist votes also went to the Left Front, which doubled its MEP contingent (bringing it to 4) and the New Anticapitalist Party, which polled over 4% but did not elect any MEPs.
  • Belgium Dutch-speaking – The result saw all five parties that won seats in 2004 lose votes. The centre-right Christian Democrats lost almost 5% of its vote, keeping its 3 seats. The liberal Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats lost 1.35%, but maintained their 3 seats. The far-right Flemish Interest (formerly Flemish Bloc) lost 7.3% of its vote after polling 23% in 2004 and lost one of their 3 seats. The Socialist Party fell to 13.2% with a 4.6% swing, and losing one of their 3 seats. The Greens were the only party to hold up, only losing 0.08% and maintaining a 7.9% vote, and their one seat. The remaining vote flowed to the new centre-right Flanders secessionist New Flemish Alliance (9.9%) and the right-wing List Dedecker, who polled 7.3%.
  • Belgium French-speaking – Three of the four main parties in the French-speaking region lost votes, all flowing to the local Greens (called ‘Ecolo’). The Socialist Party lost 7%, falling to 29.1%. The liberal Reformist Movement lost 1.5%, falling to 26%. The centre-right Humanist Democratic Centre lost 1.8%, falling to 13.34%. The far-right National Front’s vote halved from 7.5% to 3.5%. The  Greens gained 13%, polling 22.9% and gaining a second MEP.
  • Belgium German-speaking – Like the French-speaking region, the result was good for the Greens and bad for everyone else, with the incumbent Christian Social Party suffering a 10% swing, but they still safely won the sole MEP for the region.
  • Luxembourg – The six Luxembourg seats broke down between the parties the same as in 2004, with the Christian Social People’s Party winning 3 seats and the three other main parties winning 1 seat each. However, the centre-right CSVP suffered a 6% swing and the Socialist Workers’ Party lost 3%, while the Greens and Democratic Party both gained votes.
  • Netherlands - The Dutch result was strong for left-wing minor parties and the far-right. The far-right Party of Freedom polled almost 17% in their first European campaign, coming second and winning 4 seats. The liberal Democrats 66 went from 4.2% to 11.3%, winning 2 extra seats on top of their existing one. The Greens went from 7.4% to 8.9%, gaining a third seat. The centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal lost 4.4%, polling 20%. The Dutch Labour Party suffered most, falling from 23.6% to 12.2%, losing 4 of their 3 seats. The liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy also lost 1.3% of their votes, and one of their 4 MEPs in the process.
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Europe 2009 – Day 1 results

By
Ben Raue
 – June 5, 2009

Thursday June 4 saw voting in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. I haven’t seen any results from the UK for either local council elections in England or the European Parliament (which I believe will be counted on Sunday), however, we have got results for the Netherlands.

Based on exit polls, the result seems to be:

  • Christian Democratic Appeal (EPP) – 19.6%, 5 seats (-2)
  • Party of Freedom (Far-right) – 15.3%, 4 seats (+4)
  • Labour (PES) – 13.9%, 4 seats (-3)
  • People”s Party for Freedom and Democracy (ELDR) – 11.0%, 3 seats (-1)
  • Democrats (ELDR) – 10.2%, 3 seats (+2)
  • GroenLinks (GRN) – 8.8%, 2 seats (-)
  • Socialists (EUL) – 7.9%, 2 seats (-)
  • Christian Union (I/DEM) – 7.4%, 2 seats (-)

Meanwhile in the UK, the British Labour government doesn’t seem to be waiting for the expected disastrous election results for the party to start imploding with up-and-coming Cabinet minister James Purnell resigning from the cabinet and calling on Gordon Brown to quit:

We therefore owe it to our country to give it a real choice. We need to show that we are prepared to fight to be a credible government and have the courage to offer an alternative future.

I am therefore calling on you to stand aside to give our party a fighting chance of winning. As such I am resigning from government.

The party was here long before us, and we want it to be here long after we have gone. We must do the right thing by it.

I am not seeking the leadership, nor acting with anyone else. My actions are my own considered view, nothing more.

If the consensus is that you should continue, then I will support the government loyally from the backbenches. But I do believe that this question now needs to be put.

12:19pm – Update from both Netherlands and the UK. Justin-Paul has pointed out that the Dutch results might not go as the exit polls predict:

Okay, stop press. I’m taking a closer look at the Dutch results; it looks like the Greens have a chance of winning a third seat at the expense of Labour. Some of these results are unprecedented: both the Democrats and Greens outpolled Labour in Amsterdam, which is one of its key strongholds. The Democrats registered a massive 14% swing to go to 21%; the Greens got a more modest one of 2% to poll 20%. Labour just under 15%.

The Party for Freedom has polled some particularly disturbing results, coming first in a few other key Labour strongholds like Rotterdam.

In the UK, the first council to report is Bristol, where the result is:

Lib Dems = 36 (+4)
Conservatives = 17 (+4)
Labour = 16 (-8)
Greens = 1 (-)

For purpose of comparison, Bristol council covers four Westminster electorates, three held by Labour and one by the Liberal Democrats.

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Cameron pushes his own reforms

By
Ben Raue
 – May 27, 2009

Following on from potential Labour leader Alan Johnson’s call for the implementation of proportional representation in the House of Commons, Conservative leader David Cameron has proposed his own raft of reforms:

  • Limit the power of the prime minister by giving serious consideration to introducing fixed-term parliaments, ending the right of Downing Street to control the timing of general elections.
  • End the “pliant” role of parliament by giving MPs free votes during the consideration of bills at committee stage. MPs would also be handed the crucial power of deciding the timetable of bills.
  • Boost the power of backbench MPs – and limit the powers of the executive – by allowing MPs to choose the chairs and members of Commons select committees.
  • Open up the legislative process to outsiders by sending out text alerts on the progress of parliamentary bills and by posting proceedings on YouTube.
  • Curb the power of the executive by limiting the use of the royal prerogative which allows the prime minister, in the name of the monarch, to make major ­decisions. Gordon Brown is making sweeping changes in this area in the constitutional renewal bill, but Cameron says he would go further.
  • Publish the expenses claims of all public servants earning more than £150,000.
  • Strengthen local government by giving councils the power of “competence”. This would allow councils to reverse Whitehall decisions to close popular services, such as a local post office or a railway station, by giving them the power to raise money to keep them open.

I think some of these ideas are genuinely very good. Fixed term parliaments is a good step towards improving democracy, particularly if it entrenched the recent reality that most governments choose to go to the polls after four years. Other changes to the role of local government and the power of the executive likewise are a good step.

Some of them, however, seem gimmicky or impossible to maintain. The idea that sending out text messages and posting Parliament on Youtube is a major reform seems just silly. While I like the idea of MPs having a free vote when amending legislation and allowing backbench MPs to elect chairmen of their committees, they seem completely at odds with the current electoral system, apart from really being the responsibility of party leaders rather than the Prime Minister. A Conservative PM can’t force a Labour Opposition to allow its members a free vote.

Any future Conservative government will hold a majority in Parliament and will need to maintain it to stay in power. While it may be easy in his early days to grant his MPs this freedom, as soon as Labour begins to threaten him, and the day-to-day battle of winners and losers returns, pressure will come to bear on MPs with theoretical independence to not rock the boat and be a team player. Such a system would not be very different from the current reality. Likewise, a Conservative government faced with the embarassment of a party opponent winning the chair of a major committee could easily put pressure on its MPs.

You can’t create an independent legislature in a political system where a government is part of the legislature and the electoral system gives the party of government a majority. If you want to give MPs independence from the executive, you have two options:

  • Separate the executive from the legislature, as the US does. This would remove the close connection between the votes of MPs and the existence of their government. It would also reduce the ability of the executive to control MPs through the giving away of government offices and reduce their incentive to devote energy to maintaining rigid party discipline.
  • Change the electoral system so that most elections do not result in a government majority. Even if a significant minority of MPs are members of the government party and even ministers, a hung parliament is independent of government. Even a loose coalition or a minority government with agreements with minor parties produce vastly more accountability than a majority government.

There is actually a compromise option. I would argue that we have effectively created a hybrid model in Australia, with a separation of powers between the executive and the legislature, if you consider the legislature to be the Senate. Effectively the House of Representatives’ only real role in government now is as an electoral college and a pool of potential ministers.

In contrast, the Senate functions as an independent body in two ways. Firstly, it is proportional, and thus is usually independent of the government. Even though a large minority are loyal to the government, the body as a whole is independent. Of course, like any independent legislature, a dominant government can occasionally take control of the legislature (as, you could argue, the Nationals have effectively now done in New Zealand). In addition to that, even though ministers sit in the Senate, the government is not responsible to the Senate, thus Senators are elected without consideration of whether they will make or break the government, although, like any legislature, in extreme cases they can undermine the government beyond simply blocking legislation (think 1975, or Bill Clinton’s budget crisis in 1995).

Of course, it doesn’t deal with the issue that governments still hold power with minority support, and it doesn’t deal with the major issue that you have a chamber with so much of the power and resources reduced to an echo chamber and electoral college. But it could be a first step in the UK, by replacing the House of Lords with an elected Senate, along the same lines as the Australian Senate, or possibly the way that the UK elects it’s Members of the European Parliament.

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Jenkins reheated

By
Ben Raue
 – May 24, 2009

With the resurgence of interest in proportional representation in the UK, and calls for an electoral reform referendum at the 2010 general election, I tracked down and read the report of the Jenkins Commission, which proposed a PR system for the UK House of Commons in 1998.

The 1997 Labour manifesto promised a referendum on proportional representation, and upon election the Blair government appointed an independent commission headed by Lord Jenkins, former President of the European Commission, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and founding figure in the Liberal Democrats.

It’s a fascinating proposal. It’s essentially a modification of the German MMP system, called Alternative Vote Plus. Essentially, 80-85% of MPs would still be elected by constituencies, although they would be elected using Australian-style preference voting. In addition, “top-up” seats would be elected in a large number of regions, with the Jenkins Commission proposing 80 regions for the entire UK, including 65 in England.

I’ve come around to the idea of an MMP system as a way of reducing the impact of PR on our culture of electorates, although I still would prefer a Hare-Clark/STV system. The main problem I see with the Jenkins model is that it really isn’t a proper proportional system. The combination of the low proportion of the MPs elected by top-up lists and the division of these lists into 80 regions means most regions only elect 1, 2 or 3 top-up MPs. This will mean that, in many places, one party will win more constituency seats than their total allocation, and any reallocation will largely be limited to the major parties. Any party smaller than the Liberal Democrats would be lucky to win any seats.

This is particularly bizarre when you consider that where MMP is already used in the UK, in Scotland, Wales and London, almost 50% of the representatives are elected from top-up lists. I tend to think that, if you increased the number of top-up MPs to about 30% of the Parliament, and reduced the number of regions used to elect these MPs to the same constituencies used to elect the European Parliament.

It is fascinating that the UK now has a flourishing electoral reform movement, led by the umbrella group Make My Vote Count, which includes the fantastic Electoral Reform Society. We have nothing like that in Australia. While we have a Proportional Representation Society, it is a tiny group that really is more of a society of interested people than a campaign group. In particular, they have adopted a model for the NSW Parliament which is bizarre and completely impossible to implement.

I had an interesting debate across Twitter with Possum on Friday regarding the possibility for PR in Australia. Some people tend to assume that, just because PR is not in the interests of the major parties, it cannot be implemented. This ignores the fact that major parties in New Zealand, the UK and various Canadian provinces have moved to various degrees towards implementing PR. The ALP has also shown a clear preference for PR in upper houses in Australia, which demonstrates some appreciation of the benefits of the system.

However, all of those countries saw PR became an issue on the agenda once a political campaign group began actively campaigning, lobbying, signing up members and getting media attention. We are a long way away from that here in Australia. Such a campaign group was always in place to be ready for a future political crisis. We can see this in the UK now, where decades of campaigning by the Electoral Reform Society has put them in a position to take advantage of the current political crisis.

This makes me think there is room to move on this issue in New South Wales, as a starting point for future campaigning. If an Electoral Reform campaign could be started over the next year to be pushed during the 2011 election, I believe it could gain traction with voters tired of the current government. Considering that Barry O’Farrell has already opened the door to constitutional change by questioning the current fixed-four-year-term arrangement, I believe there is an opening to pressure the Opposition on some sort of constitutional debate, such as a constitutional convention, royal commission or citizens’ assembly.

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