Alan's Green Thoughts

In the absence of any elections in Britain happening for the next few months at least, and with other elections around the world likely to be postponed, welcome to the alternative topics series of Alan's Green Thoughts. The world's longest primetime animated situation comedy, The Simpsons, has been running since 17 December 1989, 30 1/4 years as of this month. Strangely enough, I have noticed that in its run of 679 episodes and counting, the words "autism" and "autistic" are not mentioned even once, despite several episodes hinting at autism in their own subtle way. I believe that in fact, the show's main protagonist, Homer Simpson, is himself an undiagnosed autistic, based on his behaviour and implied reasons behind it throughout the cartoon's run, and may in fact be the most famous fictional undiagnosed autistic character on television. The viewers just believe he is a buffoon and a jerk, although overall they are of course correct in that assu...

Although three of the four British local by-elections scheduled to take place yesterday were cancelled due to the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, one still went ahead regardless. The results of that by-election were as follows: Coventry MBC, Upper Stoke: Labour 639 (52.8%, +2.4%), Conservative 350 (28.9%, +8.6%), Green 120 (9.9%, -3.0%), Socialist Alternative 101 (8.3%). All changes are since May 2019. [UKIP did not stand] The absence of UKIP in this by-election proved to be a boon to the Conservatives, but not only is this ward safely Labour, so few voters were willing to come to the polling station amidst the coronavirus outbreak anyway. It therefore made no real difference in the end, and the intervention of Socialist Alternative via Jane Nellist, wife of ex-Labour MP and former Socialist councillor David Nellist, did no harm to Labour. Turnout dropped to as low as 9% because of the coronavirus outbreak, although for the psephological record it must be noted that two local by-...

Readers, the results of British local by-elections from the week beginning 9 March 2020 were as follows: (10/3/20) Wiltshire UA, Till & Wylye Valley: Conservative 637 (49.6%, -4.6%), Liberal Democrats 623 (48.5%, +4.4%), Labour 24 (1.9%). (12/3/20) Ashford DC, Park Farm North: Ashford Independents 247 (60.2%), Conservative 115 (28.0%, -33.4%), Labour 29 (7.1%, -12.8%), Green 11 (2.7%), Liberal Democrats 8 (2.0%, -16.7%). Ashford Independents gain from Conservative. Highland UA, Eilean Cheo (1st preferences) : Independent (Murdo) 911 (28.5%), SNP 874 (27.3%), Liberal Democrats 698 (21.8%), Green 357 (11.6%), Conservative 314 (9.8%), Martainn Misreachd 45 (1.4%). Independent gain from another Independent at stage 5. [Some other Independents did not stand] South Somerset DC, Parnett : Liberal Democrats 387 (52.0%, -12.5%), Conservative 162 (21.8%, -13.7%), Independent (Ashton) 160 (21.5%), Green 35 (4.7%). Stratford on Avon DC, Welford on Avon : Liberal Democrats 472 (43...

Today, the budget for the first quarter of 2020 was announced by Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer for only six weeks now. Although very different from previous Conservative government budgets due to announcements about investments into public services to combat the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus, as well as plans to open Treasury offices in Scotland, Wales and the North of England which were all previously unfriendly to the Conservatives, there are five main reasons why it is just an exercise in short-term placation: 1. If we were not experiencing a coronavirus outbreak, it is doubtful there would be talk of such investment in the NHS. Furthermore fundamental problems with the NHS are not being addressed by the budget  2. The taxation part of the budget means relatively little. £85 extra per year from a higher tax threshold for National Insurance Contributions will make little or no difference whatsoever, although the scrapping of the "tampon tax" will mean a grea...

The USA's "Super Tuesday" in terms of 2020 Presidential primaries proved to be a politically bruising one for the contenders for the Democratic nomination in this year's election for President of the United States of America. At this time of writing, with eight months to go before the actual election itself, the Democratic primaries are now down to only three contenders: Joe Biden, former Vice President of the USA, radical Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg having now dropped out of the race. Although Mr Biden is ahead of Mr Sanders in terms of delegate numbers, and has received the endorsement of Mr Bloomberg, and also Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttgieg (two other significant contenders who have also dropped out), it is by no means over just yet-and this is why: 1. Mr Biden is only ahead by 65 delegates-596 to Mr Sanders' 531. Furthermore,...

For the third time in less than one calendar year, Israel had a Knesset election, after yet another failure to form a government. The Basic Law of Israel required this second snap election after President Reuven Rivlin gave lawmakers until 11 December 2019 to form a government; an attempt to form a grand coalition between moderately conservative Likud and the liberal Blue & White Alliance failed due to incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting on inclusion of allied parties even though they were mathematically unnecessary for such a coalition (which would have 65 seats, a majority of 10 in the 120-seat Knesset), and furthermore Mr Netanyahu is still under indictment for alleged bribery and fraud; his trial on those charges will begin in less than a fortnight for now, especially since he withdrew his bid for immunity five weeks ago. Likud surprisingly managed to top the poll in this Knesset election, albeit with just 36 seats, an increase of 4 from September 20...

The Slovak parliamentary election of 2020 in many respects followed a trend towards hardline conservative Euroscepticism seen across Eastern Europe, most pronounced in Hungary and Poland. The Direction-Social Democracy (SMER-SD)-led coalition, led first by Robert Fico and then Peter Pelligrini, suffered a decisive defeat at the election, with SMER-SD itself polling just 18.3% of the vote, marking the first time since its inaugural run 2002 it did not finish first in a Slovak parliamentary election, and it dropped from 49 seats to 38. The coalition, which also included the Slovak Conservative Party (formerly Network), the Slovak National Party, and Most-Hid (a Hungarian minority interest party, the other being MKS, or Party of the Hungarian Community), went into a downward spiral after a political crisis emerged following the 2018 murder of journalist Jan Kuciak, who was investigating tax fraud within SMER-SD and suspected 'Ndrangheta (an organised crime syndicate similar to the M...