Alan's Green Thoughts

The next local elections to many councils in England will take place in May, which will happen irrespective of what happens between Britain and continental Europe. A lot of these councils will experience significant boundary changes, with Warwick's set of ward boundary changes becoming its second this decade alone. The other councils experiencing boundary changes, excluding those that have come into being as a result of council mergers, include Allerdale, Ashford, Babergh, Bath & North East Somerset, Bolsover, Cheshire West & Chester, Chichester, Crawley, Dartford, Dover, East Cambridgeshire, East Devon, East Hampshire, Eastbourne, Forest of Dean, Harborough, Hertsmere, Horsham, King's Lynn & West Norfolk, Lewes, Mid Suffolk, North Devon, North East Derbyshire, North Norfolk, Norwich, Nottingham, Preston, Redcar & Cleveland, Reigate & Banstead, Ribble Valley, Richmondshire, Rother, Runnymede, Rutland, Scarborough, South Gloucestershire, South Norfolk, Sou...

I have touched on psephological concepts like the magnification effect in electoral analyses in the past. This year, I will run a series of phenomena and concepts within electoral analysis itself, once every month 1. The Gallagher Index British elections, at a local and national level, are notoriously unfair in terms of who gets represented on the council and in Parliament, since smaller parties are squeezed out whilst larger parties can control the council or Parliament by themselves despite not receiving close to half of the votes cast. This is due to the disproportionality of first past the post electoral politics, which can produce even more disproportional results elsewhere, most notably in Canada. Meanwhile, countries using list-PR only elections, which includes most European countries, and mixed member proportional representation, produce much fairer electoral outcomes, although this depends on any threshold applied to list seats along with electoral laws determining distr...

On Tuesday, Theresa May's Brexit deal, quoted by many as reducing Britain to "a vassal state of the European Union" was defeated by a historic margin of 432 votes to 202. Just 196 Conservative MPs voted for the deal, aided by 3 Labour MPs (Ian Austin, Kevin Barron, and John Mann) and 3 Independents (Lady Sylvia Hermon, Stephen Lloyd and John Woodcock) This prompted Jeremy Corbyn to call a vote of no confidence in the government itself, which had it succeeded would have inevitably resulted in a snap general election the way the vote of no confidence in James Callaghan's government in 1979 did. However, it was defeated by 306 votes to 325, with not a single Conservative MP voting no confidence in the government and with the Independent Unionist, Lady Sylvia Hermon (MP for North Down since 2001) voting to support the government. Earlier today, the Liberal Democrats stated they would not support any future Labour no confidence votes during the course of this Parliament...

Readers, the results from the two local by-elections in Britain held this week were as follows: East Sussex CC, Bexhill West: Independent (Earl-Williams) 1761 (51.9%), Conservative 1071 (31.6%, -1.7%), Liberal Democrats 261 (7.7%, +2.1%), Labour 111 (3.3%, -3.8%), Green 107 (3.2%), UKIP 81 (2.4%, -1.2%). Rother DC, Bexhill St Marks: Independent (Harmer) 1000 (60.7%), Conservative 521 (31.6%, +0.2%), Labour 79 (4.8%, -6.2%), UKIP 48 (2.9%,-18.1%). *A Liberal Democrat candidate was nominated for the (Bexhill) St Marks by-election but this nomination was subsequently withdrawn. One of the independents was the widow of the deceased Independent councillor, Stuart Earl, with another being a supporter of Stuart Earl. Local independents have had strong support in Bexhill for years, and in one of the most strongly Conservative areas of the country, which also has one of the oldest populations in the UK. Unsurprisingly, swings were low in the county council by-election, but a signifi...

2019 will be one of the most important years for Britain-the path it takes will decide its future for decades to come. With precisely 85 days from now until the UK officially withdraws from the EU, those who want to stop Brexit must act fast. Meanwhile, what is coming up this year? European elections-but unfortunately Britain will not be taking part this year, or in future, unless somehow, sometime, Article 50 is postponed or aborted. Parliamentary elections in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Israel, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa and also in Thailand if there are no further delays, and elsewhere. A state election in New South Wales, Australia, just before the federal election across Australia, and local elections in the Republic of Ireland. Local elections in the United Kingdom. This year we say cheerio to all of Dorset's existing councils, which are being replaced by a Dorset unitary council and a Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole council....