Alan's Green Thoughts

  Readers, the results of British local by-elections from the first half of September 2022 were as follows: (1/9/22): Redditch BC, Headless Cross & Oakenshaw : Labour 767 (41.9%, +17.7%), Conservative 686 (37.5%, -25.4%), Liberal Democrats 274 (15.0%, +9.3%), Green 102 (5.6%, -1.6%). Labour gain from Conservative; all changes are since 2021. Worcestershire CC, Arrow Valley West : Labour 1,342 (53.7%, +17.4%), Conservative 893 (35.7%, -15.5%), Green 146 (5.8%, -0.9%), Liberal Democrats 120 (4.8%, -1.0%). Labour gain from Conservative. (8/9/22): Arun DC, Barnham : Green 786 (50.9%, +19.1%), Conservative 641 (41.5%, +11.3%), Labour 116 (7.5%, -8.0%). Green gain from Conservative. Cannock Chase DC, Hednesford North : Labour 290 (38.1%, +4.8%), Chase Community Independent 228 (30.0%, +2.6%), Conservative 208 (27.3%, -12.0%), Independent (Harborow) 35 (4.6%). Labour gain from Conservative; all changes are since 2021. Hartlepool UA, Foggy Furze : Labour 443 (43.9%, +23.8%), Conservative 3

The Swedish general election of 2022 generated some surprising results, despite also averting pollsters' predictions significantly. The last three years in particular proved to be a rough ride for the Social Democrat led governments of Stefan Lofven and Magdalena Andersson respectively. Although Sweden's laxer approach to the COVID-19 pandemic (compared to most countries in Europe, which imposed lockdowns during much of 2020 and 2021, an approach that arguably caused more problems than it solved) proved effective, Mr Lofven's desire to lift the austerity tax (which only affected a wealthy minority, similar in nature to the wealth tax initiative of former French President Francois Hollande) and to join NATO proved contentious, with two of the Social Democrats' former coalition partners (the Swedish Greens and Swedish Left Party, who had both pulled out of confidence and supply) unsurprisingly voting against Swedish accession to NATO membership (all other parties in the R