Alan's Green Thoughts

The Icelandic parliamentary election of 2017 was widely predicted to bring in a record surge for the Left-Green Movement of Iceland, led by popular progressive Katrin Jakobsdottir. It was not quite to be, however. The Left-Green Movement lost considerable momentum just when they needed it before the end of the campaign, partly due to attack advertisements from the ruling conservative Independence Party. The Left-Greens added only one seat to their total, bringing up them to 11, although even a one-seat improvement is very useful in Iceland as their Althing has only 63 members. Nevertheless, last minute tactics were not enough to prevent losses by IP, who lost 5 seats bringing them down to 16, although given that the snap election was caused by a scandal involving a letter involving the Prime Minister's father (Benedikt Sveinsson wrote a letter recommending that a convicted child rapist have their "honour restored": http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41280080  )...

Readers, the results of this week's local by-elections in Britain were as follows: Charnwood BC, Loughborough Hastings (2 seats): Labour 676/648 (63.5%, +18.4%), Conservative 228 (21.9%,-0.8%), UKIP 95/79 (8.3%, -9.3%), Green 73/58 (6.3%, -8.3%). Derbyshire Dales DC, Ashbourne South: Conservative 495 (46.2%, -6.4%), Liberal Democrats 334 (31.2%), Labour (22.6%, -2.5%). Herefordshire UA, Kings Acre: Conservative 302 (38.5%), Independent 162 (20.6%), It's Our County 156 (19.9%, -30.2%), Liberal Democrats 90 (11.5%, -21.9%), Labour 75 (9.6%). Conservative gain from It's Our County (Herefordshire). Kirklees MBC, Batley East: Labour 2640 (77.0%, +7.2%), Conservative 443 (12.9%, -1.0%), Local Independents Heavy Wool District 141 (4.1%), Liberal Democrats 136 (4.0%, -1.0%), Green 70 (2.0%, -1.0%). Mid Sussex DC, East Grinstead Imberhorne: Conservative 540 (58.5%, -1.2%), Liberal Democrats 206 (22.3%), Labour 110 (11.9%, -9.1%), Independent 67 (7.3%). Tameside MBC, Droy...

In the Japanese general election of 2017, called less than 3 years after the previous election, change was relatively limited. Nevertheless, free and fair elections must be analysed. The governing coalition of the centre-right Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (neither liberal nor particularly democratic in practice) and the Komeito Party, the political arm of the Soka Gakkai Buddhist movement, did lose seats but only a total of 11 this election. It has a total of 313, which still represents over a 2/3 majority in the Japanese House of Representatives that elected 465 members this year. The LDP could actually govern by itself due to having 284 seats out of 465, but it will be continuing its coalition with Komeito nonetheless. Shinzo Abe, famous for "Abenomics" is still rather popular in Japan, and despite the formation of the Constitutional Democratic Party to replace the Democratic Party of Japan the opposition is still very fragmented. In fact, the DPJ was not planning ...

The Czech election of 2017 delivered a very dramatic result-just like the Czech election of 2013, one of the first I analysed. ANO, the relatively new (de facto) pro-EU liberal-conservative party led by the second richest man in the Czech Republic, scored a decisive victory as was expected, winning 29.64% of the vote and topping the poll in every region of the Czech Republic, even Prague, the capital. Andrej Babis, formerly Deputy Prime Minister, is now set to become the next Czech PM although he must still be careful about his choice of coalition partners. ANO has been able to do this by presenting a "big tent" ideology similar to that promoted by Italy's Five Star Movement and by assembling a large protest vote, especially in rural areas formerly loyal to the Civic Democrats. The Civic Democrats surprisingly came second, but it was a distant second with only 11.32%, less than 4% more than what they managed in their 2013 drubbing when they lost almost 3/4 of their seat...

Readers, the results of this week's local by-elections in Britain were as follows: Epping Forest DC, Lower Sheering: Conservative 220 (80.1%), Liberal Democrats 52 (19.9%). Gravesham BC, Meopham North: Conservative 721 (64.0%, +6.5%), Liberal Democrats 192 (17.0%), Labour 155 (13.8%, -4.8%), UKIP 59 (5.2%, -18.7%). Hartlepool UA, Seaton: Putting Hartlepool First 474 (31.6%), Independent Little 425 (28.3%, +15.6%), Labour 275 (18.3%, -4.9%), Conservative 180 (12.0%, -0.9%), UKIP 148 (9.9%, -13.8%). Putting Hartlepool First gain from Independent. Lincoln BC, Carholme: Labour 922 (63.4%, +4.5%), Conservative 368 (25.3%, +6.2%), Green 83 (5.7%, -6.8%), Liberal Democrats 82 (5.6%, -3.8%). Nottingham UA, Basford: Labour 1409 (68.2%, +19.3%), Conservative 408 (19.7%, +2.5%), UKIP 119 (5.8%, -11.4%), Green 81 (3.9%, -9.6%), Liberal Democrats 49 (2.4%).   Nottingham UA, Bestwood: Labour 1280 (63.4%, +8.2%), UKIP 301 (14.9%, -7.1%), Conservative 297 (14.7%, -1.2%), Liberal D...

The Austrian parliamentary election of 2017 marked a sharp turn to the right in Austrian politics. The main conservative party of Austria, the Austrian People's Party (OVP) which has governed almost always in a grand coalition with the social-democratic Social Democrats of Austria (SPO) except for an infamous period from 1999-2005 where the nationalist right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) were coalition partners, has topped the poll with a sharp increase in vote share from 23.7% to 31.2%, resulting in 15 extra seats. They managed this despite the setbacks they had been suffering in three of the last four years, especially when their presidential candidate finished a poor fourth in 2016. The SPO, meanwhile, only narrowly held onto second place after postal votes; before postal votes were counted (postal votes are always counted the day after all other votes due to quirks in Austrian electoral law) they were provisionally third behind the FPO (the OVP have only finis...

Readers, the results of this week's UK local by-elections were as follows: Aberdeenshire UA, Invernurie & District: Conservative 1672 (48.5%,+12.6%), SNP 1146 (33.3%, +5.7%), Liberal Democrats 295 (8.2%, -3.2%), Labour 276 (8.0%, +3.7%), Green 56 (1.9%). Conservative elected at stage 4. Ashfield DC, Hucknall North: Ashfield Independent 1329 (51.1%, +40.3%), Labour 629 (24.2%, -5.8%), Conservative 532 (20.4%, -10.7%), UKIP 66 (2.5%, -17.4%), Liberal Democrats 46 (1.8%). Ashfield Independent gain from Conservative. Sheffield MBC, Beighton: Labour 1640 (48.6%, +5.9%), Liberal Democrats 899 (26.6%, +21.2%), Conservative 552 (16.3%, -1.4%), UKIP 212 (6.3%, -20.0%), Green 74 (2.2%, -2.6%). Tamworth BC, Boleshall: Labour 643 (53.4%, +3.9%), Conservative 561 (46.6%, +22.2%). Three Rivers DC, Oxley Hall & Hayling: Liberal Democrats 672 (41.3%, +18.5%), Conservative 461 (28.3%, -8.4%), Labour 428 (26.3%, +4.4%), UKIP 35 (2.2%, -16.4%), Green 31 (1.9%). Liberal Democrat...

Hello everyone. I came back from the Autumn 2017 Green Party conference in Harrogate, one of the most contentious and therefore genuinely democratic conferences in my five years as a Green Party member. It was not the most-well attended conference I have seen so far, but it was very engaging nevertheless. It was also the first Green Party conference I have experienced so far to extend into Tuesday. The five things I enjoyed about the Autumn 2017 Green Party conference were: 1. The acceptance of the crucial precautionary principle as policy; it is a vital tool in our technologically advanced world when protecting our environment and therefore ourselves. 2. The Green Party also made inspiring calls for the elimination of plastic waste and for gender-based hate crime to be recorded alongside other types of hate crime. 3. A holistic governance review was easily adopted, which is excellently in line with green politics and core green pillars. 4. Members' determination to ...

The results of the eight local by-elections in Britain of this week were as follows: Adur DC, Mash Barn: Labour 490 (49.3%, +29.7%), Conservative 384 (38.6%, +16.1%), Liberal Democrats 89 (9.0%, -6.6%), Green 31 (3.1%). Labour gain from UKIP; all changes are since 2016. Cheshire East UA, Crewe East: Labour 1174 (60.7%, +15.2%), Conservative 542 (28.0%, +6.4%), UKIP 158 (8.2%, -14.0%), Green 59 (3.1%, -7.6%). Hertsmere BC, Borehamwood Kenilworth: Labour 383 (37.8%, -8.5%), Conservative 341 (33.7%, -20.0%), Liberal Democrats 144 (14.2%), Independent 91 (9.0%), UKIP 54 (5.3%). Labour gain from Conservative. Hinckley & Bosworth DC, Burbage Sketchley & Stretton: Conservative 822 (39.0%, -3.8%), Liberal Democrats 785 (37.3%, +8.1%), Labour 321 (15.2%, +2.2%), UKIP 120 (5.7%, -9.2%), Independent 57 (2.7%). Redcar & Cleveland UA, St Germain's: Liberal Democrats 661 (38.4%, +9.0%), Labour 368 (21.4%, +1.0%), Independent Lambert 261 (15.2%), Independent Jeffries 225 (13...