Alan's Green Thoughts

In seven weeks' time, the Czech Republic aka Czechia will be holding its next legislative election. The most notable feature is that ANO (derived from the Czech word for 'yes') has been a great success by the standards of the often fragmented Czech parliament; Czech politics is truly multiparty. Many countries with proportional representation by contrast have two particularly dominant parties, usually representing moderate conservatives and social democrats; other parties can generally only hope to be junior coalition partners. This was originally the case in the Czech Republic with the ODS and CSSD almost always taking over half the seats between them, but not anymore. ANO's leader, Andrej Babis, who is also the second richest man in the Czech Republic, is set to become Prime Minister having been Deputy Prime Minister in the currently Social Democrat-led government. The Social Democrats themselves have not been well-received despite being the leading coalition partne...

2017 is becoming one of the most interesting years for European politics, and the upcoming Austrian legislative election is certainly no exception. There has been a lot of turmoil amongst Austria's main politics parties lately. The Austrian Greens (GRUNE) have first suffered the resignation of Eva Glawischnig, who in 2013 led them to their best ever performance (24 seats), the expulsion of their youth movement (the Young Greens, the most left-wing section) who have now teamed up with the Communist Party of Austria (KPO), and the decision of one of their longest-serving and best-known MPs, Peter Pilz, to set up his own list after delegates decline to renew his spot on the party list. The populist right Freedom Party of Austria has experienced yet another split, with Karl Schnell forming the Free Austria List (FLO) and taking 4 FPO MPs with him, although this has not done much to damage FPO's standing. The SPO (Social Democrats of Austria) and OVP (Austrian People's Par...

Having arrived back from my Bank Holiday weekend holiday in Skegness, Lincolnshire, I am glad to have this rest to bring you my guide to the New Zealand general election of 2017. Sixteen parties in total have been approved for candidacy in this election, which are: National, Labour, Green, NZ First, ACT (Association of Consumers and Taxpayers), United Future, Maori, Mana (more left-wing version of the Maori Party), Internet (not in an alliance with Mana this year), Conservative, Legalise Cannabis, Ban 1080 (1080 is a type of anti-possum poison known to have detrimental environmental effects), Democrats, and three new entrants in the form of The Opportunities Party, Outdoors, and the People's Party (a minority rights party). 23 MPs of the current 121 are retiring, most notably including former PM John Key, former Green leader Metiria Turei after admission of past benefit fraud (fellow Green MPs David Clendon and Kennedy Graham also announced their retirement as a result)...

The next Norwegian general election is just three weeks away-and an interesting one it will be as well. The parties participating in this election include (from 2013): the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Progress Party (actually a Norwegian equivalent of UKIP), the Centre Party, the Christian Democrats, the Liberals, the Socialist Left Party, the Green Party, the Red Party (Marxist), the Christians, the Pensioners Party, the Pirate Party, Democrats in Norway, Alliance, Health Party, Feminist Initiative, the Communist Party, and the Capitalist Party. At present, Prime Minister Erna Solberg from the Conservatives (Hoyre) is set to lose power, especially due to a dip in fortunes in the Progress Party, whose leader, Siv Jensen, is the Norwegian Minister of Finance. Meanwhile, the Labour leader in Norway, Jonas Gahr Stare, is not polling any better than Labour did in 2013 and the performance of other parties (especially those hovering around the 4% threshold for levelling seat...

Readers, this week's local by-election results were as follows: Aylesbury DC, Riverside: Conservative 301 (34.7%, +4.6%), Liberal Democrats 286 (32.9%, +16.1%), Labour 210 (24.2%, +4.5%), UKIP 48 (5.5%, -27.9%), Green 23 (2.3%). Aylesbury DC, Southcourt: Liberal Democrats 456 (37.3%, +9.5%), Conservative 386 (31.5%, +7.3%), Labour 270 (22.1%, +0.6%), Green 58 (4.7%, -0.5%), UKIP 55 (4.4%, -16.8%). Forest Heath DC, St Mary's: Conservative 338 (50.1%, +5.0%), Labour 276 (40.9%, +12.4%), Green 60 (8.9%). Peterborough UA, Park:  Labour 1713 (49.6%, +9.8%), Conservative 1375 (39.8%, +2.2%), UKIP 176 (5.1%, -4.0%), Liberal Democrats 109 (3.2%, -1.1%), Green 83 (2.4%, -6.9%). Each of these elections was a tight contest, which ironically explains why none of them changed hands this week, although Riverside was a near-miss for the Liberal Democrats who are experiencing a local revival in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire's county town. Surprisingly given that the holiday month of...

Next month, Germany goes to the polls for the Bundestag election, one of the most important in all Europe especially given the influence of Chancellor Dr Angela Dorothea Merkel, aka 'Mutti'. The candidates in the Wahlkreis (single member constituencies) and the Landkreis (party lists) have now been finalised, and a total of 38 parties will be participating in this election. Including the CSU who are allied with the governing CDU, only 10 will be on the ballot in all states. They are in addition to the CDU/CSU the SPD (Social Democrats), Greens, FDP (Free Democrats), Die Linke (The Left), AfD (Alternative for Germany), Die PARTEI, MLPD (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany), FREIE WAHLER (Free Voters) and BGE (Basic Income Party). Other parties featured in 10 or more of the lander include the NPD (National Democrats; Berlin is the only place where they are not on the ballot), PIRATEN (Pirate Party), ODP (Ecological Democrats), V-Partei (Vegetarians and Vegans Part...

There have been recent talks of pro-Remain MPs from both Labour and the Conservative Parties forming a new, anti-Brexit 'centre party', as seen in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/05/new-political-party-leave-voters-right  among other media. This is reminiscent of the breakway SDP, founded by the 'Gang of Four' (Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers) in 1981 and taking in 27 Labour MPs (and the Conservative MP for North West Norfolk, Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler) in the process. Although it initially achieved surprisingly high success in by-elections and some local elections and, once allied to the Liberals, topped the opinion polls until the Falklands War, it overall only ended up splitting the Labour vote enough to grant the Conservatives treble-figure majorities twice (144 in 1983 and 102 in 1987) and after 1987 dwindled to the point where most of its members agreed a merger between the SDP and the Liberals ...

Labour's win of the recent by-election in Marine ward, Worthing, is not a surprise but merely part of a trend. Seaside resorts, particularly on the south coast, have been getting considerably better for Labour during the last few years. Blackpool and Brighton started the trend in the 1980s when after the 1992 general election, Blackpool North, Blackpool South and Brighton Pavilion became marginal seats for the first time having always been safely Conservative before. Previously, such seaside towns could only possibly become marginal through the intervention of respected Liberal candidates (Ronnie Fearn in Southport, for example, and briefly Michael Pitts in Scarborough) with a strong personal vote, and that was only possible in smaller seaside towns. To compare the general election trend in such places, let us take a look at the main results in Worthing West and Worthing East & Shoreham since their creation in 1997 (from Worthing and Shoreham): Worthing West: Year: ...

Readers, the results from this week's local by-elections in the UK are as follows: Charnwood DC, Loughborough Shelthorpe: Labour 595 (45.5%, +4.7%), Conservative 591 (45.2%, +2.7%), Liberal Democrats 93 (7.1%), UKIP 29 (2.2%). King's Lynn & West Norfolk BC, St Margarets with St Nicholas: Conservative 253 (36.2%, -6.6%), Labour 210 (36.0%, -3.1%), Liberal Democrats 173 (24.7%), Green 63 (9.0%, -15.1%). Conservative gain from Labour. Sevenoaks DC, Penshurst, Fordscombe, and Chiddingstone: Conservative 438 (58.8%, +5.5%), Liberal Democrats 253 (34.0%, +0.2%), Labour 54 (7.2%). Swale BC, Milton Regis:  Labour 573 (53.8%, +25.1%), Conservative 255 (23.9%, -9.8%), UKIP 151 (14.2%, -14.7%), Liberal Democrats 86 (8.1%, -0.5%). Labour gain from UKIP. Thanet DC, Margate Central: Labour 454 (57.1%, +26.6%), Conservative 190 (24.1%, +3.4%), UKIP 52 (6.6%, -25.7%), Liberal Democrats 33 (4.2%), No Description (Dean McCastree) 24 (3.0%), Green 23 (2.9%, -7.4%), Independent 13 (1...