Alan's Green Thoughts

The second round of six French constituency (or circonscription ) by-elections concluded yesterday, and they resulted in a sharp rebuke for President Emmanuel Macron. These were all caused by the elevation of their incumbent MP to a mayoralty in the French local elections in June. Even though his party, LREM (Les Republic-En Marche!) were defending two of the seats, they failed to make the second round in any of the six by-elections. Although President Macron has handled the coronavirus pandemic better than Boris Johnson has in the United Kingdom, the effects of his reforms are still fresh in voter memories at present. The main opposition, Les Republicans (LR), France's main conservative party, did not perform as well as expected but nevertheless came out strongest. In the 3rd constituency of Maine-et-Loire, the LR candidate only prevailed in the second round due to transfers from France Arise (DLF, Debout La France), which is France's closest answer to UKIP and the Brexit Part...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the most progressive justices to have ever sat on the US Supreme Court, passed away yesterday. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg will be remembered for her commitment to women's rights in particular within the US Supreme Court, her strong dissents especially regarding human rights issues, and her authorship of three important human rights cases: United States v Virginia, which held that women had the same rights to enrol in military academies in the USA as men; Olmstead v. LC, which helped many US citizens with mental illness transfer to community programs and avoid unnecessary institutionalisation, and Friends of the Earth Inc. v Laidlaw Environmental Services Inc., which allowed plaintiffs to sue companies which had polluted in the past even if they had closed the operations responsible. Ever since she wrote the plaintiff's brief for Reed v Reed in 1971, which held that testators could not be preferred on the basis of sex and which changed many sex/ge...

  The Canadian province of New Brunswick's early election, called to break the deadlock after negotiations between Premier Blaine Higgs of the Progressive Conservatives and other parties failed, resulted in a small but decisive majority for the Progressive Conservatives. Mr Higgs' tactic, however necessary, clearly worked-the Progressive Conservatives managed to come top of the poll with 39.41%, an increase of 7.52% over 2018. They increased their seat total by 7 to 27, giving them a majority of 5. There are only 49 members in the New Brunswick legislature so a majority of 5 is actually a working majority. The New Brunswick Liberals, meanwhile, led by Kevin Vickers even though he was not a sitting MLA, lost 3 seats, leaving them with 17, and dropped to 34.36%, and Mr Vickers did not come close to capturing the riding of Miramichi from the People's Alliance. Despite high hopes and increasing awareness for the need for a green recovery in a post-coronavirus world, the Greens ...

  The most competitive executive and leadership elections in Green Party history saw much less change than expected-and notably the lowest turnout ever in a Green Party Leadership election. Even though there was a high standard of competition between the leader and deputy leader candidates, turnout dropped to 15.4% and 13.5% respectively in the said leader and deputy leader elections, and this cannot be solely attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic given the turnout levels in the Liberal Democrat leadership election whose result was announced two weeks ago (Sir Ed Davey convincingly defeated Layla Moran on a turnout of 57.1%). Sian Berry & Jonathan Bartley, the incumbents, were elected but polled only 48.9% of 1st preference votes compared to 75.1% in 2018, mainly due to the candidacy of Rosi Sexton who was also the only leadership candidate living north of the Wash (Rosi is a councillor in Solihull) and who controversially did not oppose HS2 or nuclear power. Rosi p...

Last week, Jamaica held an early general election (the next elections there were not expected until February 2021) despite the still ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The result was a stunning victory for Jamaican PM Andrew Holness and his Jamaican Labour Party (despite its name, this is actually Jamaica's equivalent of the Conservative Party in practice), who won 49 seats and 57% of the vote, up from 32 seats (a one seat majority) and 50% in 2016. The opposition People's National Party meanwhile won just 14 seats and 42.8% of the vote, and did not win a majority of seats in any Jamaican parish. The largest parish in Jamaica, Saint Andrew (which contains Mr Holness' constituency, Saint Andrew West Central, and opposition leader Peter Phillips' constituency, Saint Andrew East Central), was the only parish where no seats changed hands this year. The JLP and the PNP were the only political parties to contest this year's Jamaican election, and no Independent candidate polle...