Alan's Green Thoughts

Readers, the results of British local by-elections from 25 October 2018 were as follows: Ashford BC, Kennington: Conservative 247 (41.5%, -6.7%), Ashford Independents 227 (38.2%, +23.1%), Labour 85 (14.3%, +1.8%), Green 36 (6.1%). [UKIP and Liberal Democrats did not stand] Basingstoke & Deane BC, Norden: Labour 925 (68.2%, +2.6%), Conservative 228 (21.2%, -2.5%), Independent 80 (5.9%), Liberal Democrats 64 (4.7%, -0.2%). Dorset CC, Ferndown: Conservative 1878 (61.3%, -6.8%), Liberal Democrats 647 (21.1%, +10.6%), UKIP 540 (17.6%, +1.3%). [Labour did not stand] East Dorset DC, Ferndown Central: Conservative 899 (59.9%,+5.0%), Liberal Democrats 355 (23.7%), UKIP 246 (16.4%, -11.9%). [Labour did not stand] Hertfordshire CC, Three Rivers Rural: Liberal Democrats 1846 (53.4%, +9.5%), Conservative 1315 (38.4%, -9.0%), Labour 144 (4.2%, -0.1%), UKIP 86 (2.5%, +0.6%), Green 68 (2.0%, -1.1%). Liberal Democrat gain from Conservative. Mendip DC, Wells St Thomas: Liberal Democrats ...

Today in British time (tomorrow in Australia time) the safely Liberal division of Wentworth in Australia held a by-election, caused by the resignation of former Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull. He lost a vote of no confidence two months ago and was replaced by Scott Morrison. Echoing the woes in the Liberal government of Australia, the Wentworth by-election was gained by Independent candidate Kerryn Phelps, a doctor who is also the first LGBTIQA+ person to have been elected president of the Australian Medical Association. She also became the first non-Liberal member for Wentworth in 87 years, and her win pushes Scott's government into minority status, as the Liberal/National Coalition now only has 74 seats in the Australian House of Representatives. How did the Liberals lose one of their safest divisions in Australia? The Liberals' candidate, Dave Sharma, former Australian ambassador to Israel, was no stranger to controversy. During the campaign he had to apo...

Readers, the results of British local by-elections from 18/10/18 were as follows: Hackney LBC, Victoria: Labour 1311 (57.6%, -11.3%), Liberal Democrats 436 (19.2%, +10.6%), Green 296 (13.0%, -4.0%), Conservative 148 (6.5%, -1.2%), Women's Equality Party 84 (3.7%). Oxfordshire CC, Iffley Fields & St Mary's: Labour 1162 (48.6%, +1.7%), Green 1087 (45.4%, +4.7%), Conservative 100 (4.2%, -1.4%), Liberal Democrats 43 (1.8%, -5.0%). In light of the recent Green surges in Europe, British voters would in theory have been more motivated to vote Green this week. Surprisingly this did not occur, with the Greens achieving a 1.5% swing in their favour in Oxfordshire which was however not enough for them to win the division and return to Oxfordshire County Council, where they had had seats from 1993 to 2017. This was in spite of unofficial tacit Liberal Democrat support for the Greens, hence the Liberal Democrats' sharp decrease in vote share. This division, owing to the high c...

Yesterday saw a treble bill of elections in Europe: Belgium's local elections, the state election in Bavaria, Germany, and the Luxembourg general election. Each of them featured, as widely predicted, a strong surge for that country's Green Party. The Bavarian Green surge was the strongest, with the Greens taking second place in Bavaria, the most conservative state in Germany and once a country in its own right, for the very first time to the ever-dominant Christian Social Union (the more conservative and heavily Roman Catholic Bavarian counterpart to the Christian Democratic Union). At single member constituency level, the Greens won Wurzburg and five out of nine of the direct mandates in Munich, managing as much as 44% in Munchen-Mitte ("Munich Central"). Their vote share more than doubled to 17.5%, and their seat total also more than doubled from 18 to 38. They also came second in the majority of Bavaria's state direct mandates (single member constituencies) t...

Readers, the results of British local by-elections from the last two weeks were as follows: (4/10/18):   Cambridgeshire CC, Soham North & Isleham: Conservative 858 (48.8%, -17.4%), Liberal Democrats 527 (30.0%, +12.5%), Labour 191 (10.9%, -5.5%), Independent 182 (10.4%). Chesterfield BC, Moor: Liberal Democrats 532 (47.1%, +14.0%), Labour 445 (39.4%, -11.3%), Conservative 84 (7.4%, -8.9%),UKIP 69 (6.1%). Liberal Democrat gain from Labour. Hambleton DC, Thirsk: Conservative 679 (65.4%, -0.1%), Labour 251 (24.2%), Yorkshire Party 108 (10.4%). [No independent candidates this time] (11/10/18): Adur DC, Shortlands: Labour 448 (45.9%, +16.9%), Conservative 395 (40.5%, +10.6%), Green 132 (13.5%). Labour gain from UKIP who did not defend the seat; all changes are since 2016. [Liberal Democrats did not stand] Halton UA, Ditton: Labour 644 (73.5%, +11.6%), Conservative 135 (15.4%), Liberal Democrats 97 (11.1%). [No independent candidates this time] Hartlepool UA, Hart: Ind...

Whilst I was at conference, Latvia held its 2018 general election, which resulted in a resounding defeat for its governing coalition. This coalition was one of only a handful ever to be led by an alliance involving a Green Party, namely the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS). However, its Prime Minister, Maris Kucinkis, was a member of the regionalist Liepaja Party (in coalition with ZZS) which advocates for the interests of the port city of Liepaja. Normally when coalition governments lose, the smaller junior partners suffer the heavier losses. However, because the seat numbers in political parties in Baltic states are usually relatively evenly balanced despite a 5% threshold for representation being in place, compared with the ipso facto "red/blue" dominance in Western and Northern Europe, this does not normally happen in Latvia. The leading Unity party lost 15 seats out of 23, giving it just 8, and ZZS dropped from 21 seats to 11, whereas the National Alliance lost on...

The Green Party conference of 2018, held in Bristol (tied with Brighton & Hove and Solihull for highest Green councillor numbers; each has 11 Green councillors), was certainly one of the most important I have known, and contentious at times. From time to time, British political parties have had notable conferences where policy and/or organisation are substantially overhauled to one extent or another. For example, Labour has had the 1981 Wembley Conference, which for a time gave the trade unions extensive powers especially regarding selections of MPs, and was a key factor behind the formation of the SDP later that year. By contrast, their 1995 special conference in Durham which rewrote (some say essentially abolished) the famous Clause IV. In 1991, the Green Party underwent significant organisational changes giving it its current executive body, which this year was the subject of a Holistic Review that was heard at this conference: http://greenholisticreview.co.uk/how-do-the-h...

The Quebecois election of 2018 produced the biggest sensation in Quebec's electoral history since the crushing defeat of the once-dominant conservative Union Nationale party in 1970. It was the first time since 1966 that a party other than the Quebec Liberal Party or the Parti Quebecois had won a Quebecois election, and the first time the conservative Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) won an election, having only finished third in 2014 and having only been founded in 2011. In 2014,CAQ only won 21 seats, although they increased their vote share despite losing votes overall. This time, they won a secure majority of 23 with their seat total of 74, and in an exercise of the need for proportional representation to replace first past the post, they won that majority on only 37.4% of the vote. For the first time, four parties-CAQ, PQ, PLQ, and the socialist Quebec Solidaire-were competitive in the province in spite of first past the post being used, which normally leads to two-par...