2014 Senate Elections - Prediction

In reality it is too early to give good predictions on how each state will fare in the 2014 elections. At this stage there are simply too many unknowns on both sides, over the coming months as more candidates declare their intention to run, we will have a better idea. Yet it won’t be until the primary results are known until any real predictions can be made. Republicans electing a Todd Akin or Christine O’Donnell in Oregon or Colorado will basically solidify those races in Democratic leaning states. At the same time a decision by Susan Collins to stay as the Republican nominee in Maine or if Shelley Moore Capito wins the Republican Primary in West Virginia, then these races will solidify in favour of the Republican Party. If I was asked to make an overarching prediction at this stage, I would say that the Republicans will make a net gain of around four seats, not enough for them to take a majority. If the Democrats manage to stay in power, as I've predicted, then I would hazard a guess that it will mean that Democrats won’t lose the Senate until 2018 at the earliest! The reason for this is that the 2016 Senate races last took place in 2010, the best year for Republicans in decades, so the Democrats have a massive advantage in winning seats that year! 

Republican Targets
Democratic Targets
My February 2014 Update

Tunisian Democracy in Peril?

Tunisia is the birthplace of the Arab Spring, the protests that began there and toppled a government quickly spread throughout the Middle East. Unfortunately Tunisia’s fledgling democracy is looking increasingly unstable. Following the assassination of the opposition leader, Chokri Belaid, on the 6^th of February mass protests began and numerous politicians resigned. The latest to go is the Prime Minister, Hamadi Jebali, who resigned on Tuesday after he was unable to form a coalition and refused to create a government of technocrats. The political tensions following Mr Belaid’s assassination and the completely paralysed economy means that more protests and more violence will soon follow. Others will try and form a coalition government, but it will not be easy as tensions go and more people resign. Although still several months away, these sort of problems could prove detrimental to the smooth running of the general election scheduled for summer.

All throughout the Middle East countries that overthrew dictators look increasingly likely to relapse into autocracy, their economies are struggling due to the revolutions and their politics are increasingly tense. At a time of austerity, this may not be welcomed in the West, but we must help them out. A triad of democratic states (Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) could prove invaluable as allies and would help to stabilise the region and oil supply lines (an appeal to conservatives). We’ve already seen the invaluable work a democratic Turkey has done, adding three more nations to the list would be brilliant. We must help these nations in any way possible.

Jebali announcing his resignation
source: www.bbc.co.uk

Labour to Re-Introduce the 10p Rate

Ed Miliband and the Labour Party have announced that if they win power in 2015 that they will re-introduce the 10p tax rate. The 10p rate was scraped in 2008 by Gordon Brown and caused much controversy as poorer working families were worst affected. Ed Miliband said that “it was a very bad mistake” and one that they wished to reverse. Miliband said that Labour would recover the loss in tax revenue by introducing a ‘mansion tax’ on properties worth £2 million or more. So what exactly does this all mean? Well before the original changes everyone paid zero taxes on their first £5,225, a 10p rate on the next £2,230 and a 22p rate above that until the 40p threshold. After the changes were implemented everyone paid a 20p rate above £5,225 until the 40p rate threshold. The policy change was a complete blunder and lost Labour a lot of support. Although Ed Balls (the Shadow Chancellor) and Ed Miliband have promised to re-introduce the 10p, they haven’t said how it will be done exactly. Since 2008 the point where income tax starts has risen to £8,105 and could rise even further before 2015. The move by Ed Miliband is quite surprising as previously he had refused to say specifically what the Labour Party would do after a 2015 victory as it was always “too early”. It is roughly two years until the next general election so it is quite possible that Labour is throwing out policy ideas to see what’s popular with the public. According to the monthly Ipsos Mori/Standard poll, Labour is maintaining its significant lead.

Conservative: 30%

Labour: 42%

Liberal Democrat: 7%

UKIP: 9%

According to Ipsos Mori this would result in a Labour majority of 112! Although a heck of a lot can change in politics in two years, it certainly gives Labour a large room to manoeuvre.  

North Korean Nuclear Test

North Korea has further infuriated the world earlier today when the small, isolated country carried out a third nuclear test. North Korea is a rogue state, it only has one friend in the world: China. Despite the alliance with North Korea, China is worried about what its little neighbour will do if it actually acquires fully functioning, long range, nuclear weapons. Undoubtedly the West will call for tougher sanctions on North Korea, but this won’t stop Kim Jong-Un from achieving the inevitable. The rest of the world must realise that North Korea will become a truly nuclear state within the next few years, and although we should do whatever we can to slow their progress, we must prepare for what comes after North Korea’s success. A nuclear North Korea would pose a grave threat to world security, none more so than neighbouring South Korea and close-by Japan. In both these countries people fear that the craziness of the North Korean regime should not be underestimated and that a nuclear attack on either country should not be dismissed. So what can Japan and South Korea do to defend themselves? The North Korea-South Korea border is already the most heavily fortified in the world and both countries have a massive military. Currently the situation is somewhat stable, but nuclear weapons for North Korea would throw the balance off completely. One suggestion is stationing US nuclear weapons in Japan and South Korea in a form of a nuclear sharing programme. Probably similar to how the US currently shares some nuclear weapons with several NATO countries. Naturally placing US weapons in South Korea and Japan would make China very nervous, putting a strain on Sino-American relationships. Considering the rise of China, the Americans might be wary of angering the future super power. For obvious historical reasons, many in Japan would be very upset at the idea of American nuclear weapons in Japan, especially considering they’d likely be in the south of the country close to Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Unfortunately it’s impossible to know a way out of the situation. An invasion is totally out of the situation as the North Korean military is very strong for a small country and the border is extremely well fortified. A war would likely be as devastating to the Korean peninsula as was the previous Korean War in which 2.5 million people were killed. 

What Will Silence Argentina?

It seem that every few months a member of the Argentine government makes some noise regarding the Falkland Islands. This time it was the turn of their Foreign Affairs Minister, Hector Timermann, to get angry about the issue on a trip to London. Timermann made the outlandish claim that Argentina will control the islands within 20 years. He also said there was no need to ask what the Falkland Islanders wanted to do, likening the referendum to asking Jews in the Occupied Territories if they wished to remain Israeli. This s a non-sense comparison as nobody lived on the Falkland Islands prior to the arrival of colonists. The closest thing to a Falkland Island Native is the current residents who’ve been there for 180 years!

Mr Timermann also claimed that “not one country” supported Britain, despite significant support from the West and Europe, in particular from France. He also ignored the increasing annoyance of other Latin American countries at Argentina’s increasing persistence over the issue. Argentina brings it up at every regional event, despite much more pressing issues that should be discussed. Argentina is becoming increasingly aggressive towards the population of the Falkland Islands. When I spoke with Jan Cheek, a member of the Falkland Islands Legislature, at the Labour Party Conference last year she said that Argentina is trying to intimidate and scare the Falkland Islanders. This is naturally angering the residents who are increasingly anti-Argentine and unlikely to support a transfer to Argentine sovereignty.

Argentine politicians love to beat their chests over the Falkland Islands to rally support. The reality is, so long as the residents of the Falklands wish to remain linked with the United Kingdom, Argentina will not control the islands. And nothing will change that.

Victory for Equality!

History was made yesterday when the House of Commons voted 400 – 175 in favour of gay marriage, an overwhelming majority. Despite this, it did not go as well as planned for David Cameron as more Conservative MPs voted against it rather than for it. Here is the breakdown of how the parties voted (note the SNP did not vote as it is a devolved issue and Sinn Fein doesn’t sit in the House of Comons).

Party	Yes	No	Abstained
Conservative	127	136	40
Labour	220	22	16
Liberal Democrat	45	4	7
DUP	0	8	0
Plaid Cymru	3	0	0
SDLP	1	0	2
Alliance	1	0	0
Respect	1	0	0
Green	1	0	0
Independents	1	2	0

The Tory rebels included two cabinet ministers, Owen Patterson the Environment Secretary and David Jones, the Welsh secretary. This is a massive blow to David Cameron’s authority within the Conservative Party, a lot of party members are unhappy about this self-inflicted wound.

Although the bill has not become law yet, when it passes through committee and the House of Lords it will mean that same-sex couples in England and Wales will be allowed to get married. The law will not apply to Scotland or Northern Ireland, although in Scotland there are plans to pass it soon. The combined population of England and Wales means that it will become the largest jurisdiction to have passed gay marriage. This means the UK will join 11 other countries (Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa and Sweden) as well as subdivisions of Brazil, Mexico and the US. There is still a lot to do for gay rights, although progress is moving quickly in several places. There is discussion about passing gay marriage in several states of Mexico and the US. Gay marriage is likely to be legalised in Andorra, Colombia, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Nepal, New Zealand, Taiwan and Uruguay within the next couple of years.

Unfortunately for gay people, there are worse issues. In most African and Middle Eastern states homosexuality is a punishable offense, sometimes even by death. Gay rights groups need to do more work trying to convince more people in these countries that gay sex is not a sin.

2013 is looking like it could be the best year gay marriage rights have ever had, here’s just a few key dates to watch out for:

12^th of February: France’s National Assembly votes on a same-sex marriage bill (likely to pass)

28^th of February: A Select Committee in New Zealand’s parliament will report on whether a same-sex marriage bill should continue.

April: Uruguay’s Senate will vote on a same-sex marriage bill that has already passed the Chamber of Deputies

Spring: Same-sex marriage will be discussed at Vietnam’s National Assembly

20^th of June: If Colombia’s Congress does not legislate then same-sex marriage will automatically be legalised.  

Democracy? Who Cares!

The Republicans lost the 2012 elections, Obama was re-elected as president and Democrats increased their majority in the Senate and gained seats in the House. Rather than change the outlook of their party the Republicans have a different plan: destroy democracy. Although that sounds a bit exaggerated, there is reason to believe that Republicans have had enough of democracy! Leading up to the 2012 elections numerous Republican controlled states attempted to introduce photo ID laws. The issue with this is that a significant proportion of the electorate doesn’t have photo ID and would therefore be disenfranchised! These people also tend to vote Democratic, coincidence? I think not. Naturally the people attempting to carry out these tactics won’t admit to doing so as controversy would ensue. What Republicans are using as an excuse to for their tactics is ‘rampant’ voter fraud. The problem with this argument is that the type of voter fraud that would be prevented by this is basically non-existent! We are talking about a dozen cases in as many years. So the Republican reasoning for disenfranchising up to 10% of the electorate is to stop voter fraud which happens roughly once a year in an electorate of 200 million. Fortunately most of the laws were blocked or struck down by courts before the November elections. If you don’t think that this is evidence enough that the Republicans tried photo ID laws to disenfranchise Democrats then I turn to the leader of the Pennsylvania House, Mike Turzai (R):

“Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania: done,”

If that’s not proof that the ID laws were only meant to help Republicans, I don’t know what is.

In 2012 this wasn’t the only anti-democratic moves made by the Republican Party. As a result of the 2010 mid-term elections Republicans took control of many traditionally blue states. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all gained Republican state Houses, Senates and governors. This basically mean that Republicans could do whatever they wanted, the same was true in most swing states. Unfortunately this meant that when the census figures were released, Republicans were able to re-draw the congressional districts to favour themselves. This is why the Republicans have a 33 seat majority in the House of Representatives despite Democrats winning 1.5 million more votes! The gerrymandering of congressional districts meant that results in several states were completely skewed. In Pennsylvania there were 100,000 more votes for Democrats than Republicans, yet Republicans won 13 seats to the Democrats five! In Michigan Democrats won 300,000 more votes yet only five of the 14 seats and in Wisconsin 50,000 more votes for Democrats meant only three of eight seats. Although Republicans did win more votes in other states such as Ohio and Virginia, the resulting House delegation was still disproportionate. In Ohio the difference in the vote was 5% but Republicans won 12 seats to the Democrats four and in Virginia the Republicans had 2% more of the vote but eight of the 11 seats!

This is terrible for democracy in America, when one party completely disregards the will of the people. Yet worse may still come. Republicans still control the state houses and senates thanks to Gerrymandering and now Republicans are considering something extremely radical. Some Republicans are floating the idea of rigging the presidential election as well as the House elections. What they want to do is allocate the Electoral College votes for president using the gerrymandered house districts! So far Republicans in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida have all floated the idea, if they had done this before the 2012 election then there would be currently a President Romney, despite him trailing Obama by 5 million votes nationwide. Although in most cases the laws look likely to fail, Republicans fear a public backlash against such blatant disregard for Democracy. In a number of these states the balance of the chambers is such that only a few Republicans need to oppose the idea for it to fail. Quite why America can’t simply elect a President by who gets the most votes nationwide eludes me, until this can be resolved; America’s democracy will be under threat.