By now, everyone knows what the headline figures are from this year's local elections: Labour lost 331 seats, the Tories gained 256. As a share of the vote, this was the result of 24% and 44% respectively. Three-party politics is a non-starter: with Brian Paddick in London and Nick Clegg, notwithstanding the Sheffield result (a direct result of this being Clegg's constituency), the Liberal Democrats are an irrelevance. Their only hope lies in a coalition — a likely prospect if Labour recovers by the time of a general election in 2010, and the Tories falter with the focus that will fall onto them.
In London, Boris (or BoJo) is king: 1,168,738 votes to Livingstone's 1,028,966. Ken was the "Zone 1 Mayor", for it was the outer boroughs and suburbs that won it for Boris. One under-reported gain was the number of Assembly members for Labour: up one, whilst the Tories lost one.
In no particular order, here are a number of issues and considerations for Labour supporters:
— David Cameron is now firmly tied to Boris Johnson. Whether or not that is a good thing for the Conservatives I care little, but surely is presents an opportunity for Labour? Johnson has been on a leash for the duration of the Mayoral campaign; in four years, and especially in the next two, there will be gaffes.
— Cause and effect I: Mayor Johnson's key pledges include reducing crime. Labour has overseen a decrease in crime overall through its various initiative. If crime drops in London, will that be a direct result of Boris's initiatives? Labour should ensure it isn't. (Incidentally, all Labour supporters should report every crime they see... that will put a dent in Boris's figures.)
— Cause and effect II: Ken lost; Boris won: Obvious, but we must remember that it wasn't just Boris that won this. Ken lost it. Three newspapers could barely support him ("Ken with the caveats" was how they put it), and there were always a number of issues with Ken's previous periods in office which would influence the contest.— Fairness and non-discrimination: One of the key battlegrounds in politics over the coming years will be around fairness, equality and non-discriminatory treatment, and the extent to which public reform achieves fair and equal treatment for all. The Routemaster bus was exactly an example of an issue that was about fairness — of access for disabled bus passengers. Boris has pledged to abandon (accessible) bendy buses and introduce environmentally-friendly Routemasters. But that misses the point about fairness and access, at the cost of symbolism, and should be highlighted.
— The Evening Standard: Is a poisonous, but ultimately influential vessel. It is owned by the same people who publish both the Metro (which influences many younger, less party-minded individuals) and the Daily Mail. That link — Standard–Metro–Daily Mail — needs to be pushed by Labour supporters,, especially amongst younger voters.
— Boris: is Boris a typical Tory? Yes and no. The more important question is whether or not he is typical of the Tory party David Cameron is creating.
— Letter to the Guardian:
[The local elections were] proof that David Cameron's background in public relations is paying off, but unless he reveals some policies, he will be found out. He cannot keep repeating words like "dithering", "weak", "incompetent" as a mantra without attracting himself the epithets "shallow", "without substance" [and] "vacuous".
—Telling environmental comment, which will dent the Tory / green push:
Internal polliing in London found Ken Livingstones green policies, such as new charges for gas-guzzling cars, alienated older voters, while the environment was at best a low priority for others, suggesting that, as families' budgets shrink, so does their willingness to pay to save the planet.
— National from local: The traditional caveats that local elections are best a tenuous proxy for a general election etc. still hold. But these mid-terms came on the back of a general feeling that Brown was not leading a good Labour government. Thus, many are working on the assumption that Labour will lose the 2010 general election. Working on that assumption, what should Labour do? It should stop tinkering and be brave. This bravery would include a programme over the next 18 months which could (a) entrench the past 11 years of Labour rule and (b) do something radical. The latter includes: erasing child poverty, reform of the Lords, legislating for independent living, social care reform, introduce higher taxes for the well-paid, and perhaps introduce proportional representation. Who knows what the public might make of this; who knows what the Tories would make of it. But it would be brave, and it would be the right thing to do.
— The Observer agrees:
[Gordon Brown] might devote himself to one or two core policy areas. The tricky areas of poverty, anti-social behaviour and welfare reform, terrain where the Tories are least convincing, is an obvious candidate.
Labour should take that advice: it is at its best when it is boldest.
Tags — Politics
I am away for parts of the Bank Holiday weekend, but will get my thoughts down on the local elections, including the bloody Mayor, by Monday.
Have a great weekend.
Tags — Arbitrary Constant General Interest Personal Politics
Mencap has recently created, in collaboration with people with learning disabilities, a font which is accessible for everyone to read easily. Mencap has big hopes for the font:
FS Mencap will be available for public use, rivaling Arial and Helvetica as the standard accessible font. It is hoped this will make reading easier for thousands.
The process for creating the font sounds fascinating, and highlights the importance of typography in communication:
Over a three month period, the learning disability group looked at various styles of sans serif and handwritten fonts. They considered how letter spacing, width, shape and style all affected readability and developed a very individual font with 260 characters. During the process, larger and more rounded letters were found to be more accessible. The letter 'v' was given a curved arm to differentiate it from a 'w' and the letter 'r' opened up to make it more legible.
More details on the font can be found here:
— FontSmith announces a groundbreaking new font for people with a learning disability
— FS Mencap, a new standard in legibility
Tags — Art & Design Society
The London mayoral election is on Thursday. Having thought long and hard about this, and actually against my better judgement (and what I've written here before), I will vote for Ken Livingstone.
What has led to this conclusion? Here are the considerations:
— The reality of waking up to Boris as mayor. I don't think I could live with that
— If London vote Conservative, what are the prospects for Labour in a general election, whenever that may be? A victory for Livingstone is a victory for Labour
— I am Labour, through and through. Sometimes, the party has to come above the person
— On that, even Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell are looking for a Livingstone victory
— Can I cope with 4 more years of Livingstone and his utterances on things not concerning him (most notably around foreign policy and people like Hugo Chavez etc.)? Well, no. But, this is one of the well-known problems with political positions that have inherent power in them, such as city mayors. As such, pronouncements are likely on anything from a mayor
— With the lack of any other good candidates (such as Oona King), you have to play with what you've got.
Tags — Politics
I highlighted an article in Prospect recently which showed the reality that will face the new US president in January. In a way, the converse is true for whoever becomes Mayor of London, as a recent report from the New Local Government Network (nlgn) shows:
The gla does not provide effective scrutiny of the London Mayor and should be scrapped according to a research paper from NLGN. The pamphlet argues that scrutinising the work of the Mayor does not require 25 full-time elected politicians and that much of their work is spent investigating and compiling reports that have little impact.
The numbers certainly seem to make the case:
Assembly Members are elected for four year full-time posts and receive an annual salary of £50,581. The 2008 Mayoral budget has allocated £8.7million to run the London Assembly, with £7.1million ear-marked for the running of services to Assembly Members. The report says that removing the Assembly would save £6.6million[.]
Tags — Politics
Sometimes, I can't quite get over how cool Norman Geras is. Look at this:
I don't know if I've ever said this before, but just in case I haven't... I really like going for a fast-food meal. Not that I don't like eating better than that. I do. But I like that you can go into the place and be out of there within half an hour. I like that you've then got time to do something else as well, so that eating didn't become the main purpose of the evening. (Yes, yes... I like sharing a meal with friends, and talking at leisure, so don't go raising your eyebrow at me now.) I like that the food is tasty in its own fast-food sort of way. And I even like that I know people who, if they'd seen me going into that particular joint - McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, or wherever - might say, 'What can he be thinking of?' I like that there are people who wouldn't be seen dead eating fast food, and that I can be in and out of there and think, 'Poor them'.
Tags — General Interest
Following on from the previous post outlining Tory duplicity and their plans for the funding of childcare, quite aside from the effect these plans would have on poorer people is the issue of where the money would come from. The Guardian rightly points out:
The biggest question, however, is financial. Even if the losers got no relief, the plan would carry a price tag of £4bn - a large sum for any party, but especially for one aspiring to tax cuts. The Conservatives wisely endorsed the aspiration of the report, without the specifics, exempting themselves from having to explain where the money would come from. But the Tories, ahead in the polls, need to start taking more care about what they wish for. Before long they could find themselves charged with making their wishes come true.
Tags — Politics
Voting systems are usually the preserve of psephologists and constitutional anoraks. I'm no psephologist, but I wouldn't argue against anyone that called me the latter.
Britain has, to many a person's chagrin, a first-past-the-post voting system. This means the person who gets the most number of votes — be that 1 more or 100,000 more — is the winner. For those that voted for the loser this can feel particularly harsh, especially if there are roughly similar numbers of people who voted for each candidate. (It is this system, incidentally, which has primarily led to Britain's largely two-party state.)
Many alternative voting systems exist: proportional representation is probably the best known, in which the number of representatives of a party in parliament is proportional to the number of votes a party receives. Such systems often give rise to multi-party states, such as Germany and Switzerland, and (like those countries) coalition governments. This is because single-issue parties (for example) can achieve success if they pass the (often low) electoral threshold. Most people who would like to see a reform to the voting system in Britain argue that proportional representation is the system they would prefer. There are many reasons for and against such a reform; on balance, I come out against proportional representation, mainly for the lack of strong government and inertial compromises it would inevitably lead to (an admittedly unusual position for a lefty).
Aside from proportional representation, two other well known voting systems are the single alternative vote and the alternative vote systems. We'll ignore the latter, because it's too complicated, and we can spice up a future European Parliament election with talk of the atv. The former, however, is the system in use for the London mayoral election and so is worth some consideration.
Single alternative voting works as follows. When an individual votes, they place a number 1 next to the name of their first preference on their ballot paper. Having done so, they can then choose to place a number 2 next to the name of their next preference. After this, they then submit their vote to the ballot box. When all of the ballot papers are collected, all of the number 1 votes are counted, and the candidates ranked according to the number of so-called first preferences they received. At this point, all candidates except for the two that have received the most first preferences are excluded from the remaining process: they are out of the election. However, the second preferences of all the people who voted for these excluded candidates are then taken into account: if their second preference was for either of the two remaining candidates, then that second preference is added to the remaining candidates respective totals. Thus, the single transferable vote.
It isn't as complicated as it sounds. Neither is it as democratic as it sounds, as the example of the London mayoral election shows. Consider the following: say someone — let's call them Gordon — wants to exercise their democratic right in the London mayoral election. He's not a fan of either Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson, and so doesn't want to vote for either of them. At the same time, he knows that none of the other candidates has a fart's chance in a colander of winning. So to get around this, Gordon puts down the Green party candidate as his first preference, and Ken Livingstone as his second. But what is the effect of this? The Green candidate will inevitably be excluded after the first round of counting, and so Gordon's second preference (i.e. Ken) will get his vote. As such, he has essentially voted for Ken in a straight run off between Ken and the other highest-placed candidate, which will inevitably be Boris.
Thus, in what is essentially a two-horse race, the single transferable voting system is redundant: it might as well be a first-past-the-post race (but with an artificially high electoral threshold).
There are two main ways a voter can ensure that their vote goes in no way towards helping Ken or Boris to victory. The first is by only putting down a first preference vote for anyone other than the dynamic duo. The second is by spoiling their ballot paper, possibly by some form of written statement outlining their feelings on the two main candidates and their suitability for the office of Mayor of London.
Whichever way Gordon decides to vote, he should therefore remember that the assumed benefits of a single alternative voting system are not realised in a multi-party election which is dominated by two leading candidates.
Tags — General Interest Politics Society
Tags — Art & Design
David Cameron vowed he would stop the government pushing through the abolition of the 10p rate of tax, and:
would fight in Parliament for compensation for those affected by the "disgraceful" move.
Remember, the most affected are those on low wages.
On the very same day, Cameron's party welcomed a report from Policy Exchange which has suggested the overhaul of early-years care, so that there is a flat rate of £55 parental care allowance for all parents, replacing tax credits targeted at those that need them most.
As the Guardian points out, though, this move would have a big impact on those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale:
[There] are those who would lose from the scheme - starting with working lone parents. They are currently entitled to as much as £240 towards weekly childcare bills. If support was capped at £55, many would find that they could no longer afford to work. How exactly that would fit with tough Conservative talk on welfare-to-work is, to say the least, unclear. Then there is the effect on those children whose cash-strapped parents would respond to the withdrawal of subsidy by plumping for cheap, low-quality care. That effect would be all the more dramatic if, as the report suggests, funds were released to extend the scheme by scrapping free nursery places. Authoritative research at the Institute for Education has established that a year of pre-schooling can increase the subsequent educational performance of poorer children by as much as a £10,000 boost in family income. The new allowance would provide a fraction of that - especially when the report's small print makes plain that more of the cash would go to the richest 10% than any other income bracket.
I.e. exactly those David Cameron claims he's trying to help by fighting the 10p tax rate issue are exactly those he will take money away from if his party implemented these childcare funding changes. What he gives with one hand, he takes with the other, and all should be aware of this Conservative duplicity.
Tags — Politics