Jim Murphy emerged victorious from yesterday’s Scottish
Labour leadership election. Despite his decisive win with 55% of the vote in
the first round, he was definitely the wrong choice for Labour and for Scotland
So why do I think Murphy is the wrong choice for
Scotland? The reason is that he does not represent what the Scottish electorate
believe, nor what they want in a politician. Murphy has been a Westminster
politician since 1997, when he won election to his seat of _____, since then he
has plotted a course that marks himself as hardline New Labour. Amongst his
positions that offends many socialists is his defence of the disaster in Iraq,
his support for Israel and Trident, and his general neo-liberal approach to foreign
policy. To make matters worse his history as a politician is sketchy, back in the
1996 whilst he as President of the NUS (National Union of Students) he changed
the policy of NUS support for the student grant despite the fact that the
opposite had been agreed at the NUS’ conference in Derby that year. He was
condemned by a group of Labour MPs in the House of Commons for his “intolerant
and dictatorial behaviour” as President of the NUS. More recently in 2012 (two
years after the original expenses scandal) he was caught using a loophole which
allowed him to claim £20,000 in expenses for renting out accommodation in London,
whilst simultaneously renting out property he owned.
Facing off against Murphy were MSPs Neil Findlay and
Sarah Boyack. If Scottish Labour had been thinking straight, they would have
chosen Findlay as he was the perfect candidate for Scotland. Unlike Murphy,
Findlay was not a career politician having only joined the Scottish Parliament
in 2011 after spending 30 years in various professions, including brick layer
and teacher. He was by far the favoured candidates of the Unions, having received
official backing from ten of them. His policies were much more socialist than
Murphy’s, which makes him more in line with the Scottish electorate. Findlay
opposes Trident (Britain’s nuclear weapons program) and PFIs (Private Finance
Initiatives) in the NHS, he also wants to renationalise the railways and build
100,000s of new homes. He also is very pro-Palestine and wants to make the
living wage the minimum wage.
Many Scottish voters are dissatisfied with Labour, they
believe that the Party has drifted too far to the right over the past decade.
In the last six months support for the SNP has surged in the polls, at Labour’s
expense. If Labour wants to win back people who have defected in recent months,
the Party needed to elect someone who was in tune with what Scottish people
wanted.
When given the choice between a candidate whose policies
are similar to those of the Scottish electorate in the form of Neil Findlay,
and a candidate who is a Blairite and a Westminster MP in the form of Jim
Murphy, Scottish Labour chose the latter. Labour faces a wipeout in the 2015
General Election, Findlay could have stymied that. I believe that Murphy,
despite his charisma, will contribute to the wipeout.
The Rochester and Strood by-election has thrown the British
establishment into a state of panic. The by-election was triggered when Mark
Reckless switched from the Tories to UKIP. In yesterday’s election UKIP won
42.1% of the vote whilst the three main parties all lost large percentages of
their vote. The Tories lost 14%, Labour 12% and the Lib Dems 16%, for the Lib
Dems it was their worst ever result as they lost their deposit, got less than
1% of the vote and finished in fifth, behind the Greens who got 4.2% of the
vote.
Obviously this does not bode well for the main parties’
prospects in May. The next General Election could be the most important
election in living memory as six parties vie for success. UKIP’s unique ability
to attract voters from the three main parties really makes it difficult to
understand what will happen at the next election. Although the result in
Rochester certainly seems like an earthquake, it doesn't necessitate that similar events
will happen in the General Election. Voters act differently in by-elections to
Generals, Labour didn’t win any by-elections from the Conservatives from 1997
to 2012, but they still won Generals in 2001 and 2005. A combination of factors
are the reason for by-elections looking different to General Elections.
Firstly, opposition voters tend to be more motivated to go out and show support
for their candidates. Since by-elections have no effect on who forms the government
(apart from very rare circumstances), the incumbent party supporters simply are
not motivated enough. Most importantly is that supporters of the incumbent
party can use by-elections as a way to protest vote. This is certainly part of
the reason for UKIP’s success in Rochester & Strood, many people are angry
with the Tories and so voted for UKIP to scare them into taking tougher
approaches to immigration and the European Union. However in the May election I
believe that Rochester will switch back to the Tories.
As a political junkie I am excited by what the
implications of May’s General Election will be for years to come. Take a look
at the graph and table I created below. As you can see the combined vote of
Labour and the Tories has declined over the past 70 years, albeit very slowly.
If you include the various incarnations of the Lib Dems, most of the decline
disappears. The combined vote of the three main parties has only dipped below
90% on two occasions (2005 and 2010). How this graph changes in 2015 will be
fascinating as the Greens, UKIP and the SNP erode support from the main
parties.
The ramifications of these elections are wide reaching,
especially important will be the effect on the 2016 Presidential Election.
Several of the Republicans elected this year will undoubtedly run for President
in 2016. The most commonly talked about is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who
got 52% of the vote in Democratic leaning Wisconsin. However I believe that the
dark horse of the 2016 Presidential election could be Ohio Governor John
Kasich, he cruised to re-election with 64% of the vote. Kasich is undoubtedly conservative,
but he can still get support from moderates, which is key to winning the
Presidency. Ohio is a swing state, so if he can win big in Ohio, it is a good
sign that he could win over the country.
Yet the effect on 2016 goes far beyond simply who the
nominees will be. Republicans have expanded control of the House and taken
control of the Senate, how they deal with their new found power is a huge
question. If they go for impeachment of Obama (as many in their base want them
to do) then I believe that it will be extremely damaging as Obama has not done
anything that deserves it and the public do not support it. They will also be
unable to convict him, as that requires the support of 67 Senators, so that
would mean getting support from 11 Democrats, which they won’t get. Likewise if
Republicans fail to do anything over the next few years, it could have a
negative impact on their chances in 2016.
As I discussed in my previous post, state legislatures
are very important. So why is this the case? Well they actually pass legislation,
unlike the federal Congress. The current session of Congress (2013-2015) is on
track to be the least productive Congress in the history of the United States,
whereas in the same time period state legislatures passed 24,000 bills! Legislation
like this can have huge impacts on people living in the states. Since
Republicans swept to power in many state legislatures in 2010, they have passed
many bills that are in line with their Tea Party base. The most common focuses
have been on restricting abortion and voting rights. It also has another impact
by reducing the Democratic bench for future elections, roughly half of the
Democrats in Congress were previously state legislators. However, partisan
control of the states can be rather important for determining who wins the
Presidency. Each state gets to decide how elections are run in their states
(even for federal elections) and how to award their votes in the Electoral
College. Almost every state awards their Electoral College vote based on a
winner takes all system. However two states, Nebraska and Maine, award them
slightly differently, both have two votes for the candidate who wins overall in
the state and then one for each congressional district.
There are proposals to
change other states to this system by members of the Republican Party in states
that they control, but have voted
for Obama twice. The reason why they want to propose it is that congressional
districts are gerrymandered to be more favourable to Republicans in many of
these states. In fact if Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and
Florida had used this system in 2012 then Romney would have won the Presidency insteadof Obama. However Republicans are nervous about implementing this, as it has
the potential to backfire on them; Ohio, Florida, Virginia are swing states,
hence a Republican could easily win them. After all Bush won all three in both
his elections. If they were to introduce this system, and then their candidate
won the popular vote, they would accidentally have helped the Democrat. However
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are much more consistently Democratic in
Presidential elections, the former two haven’t voted Republican since 1988 and
Wisconsin hasn’t done so since 1984! Since their candidates are unlikely to win
these states for the foreseeable future, splitting their Electoral College
votes could help a Republican win the Presidency in a close election.
Fortunately Pennsylvania has just elected a Democratic governor, which will
make changes there unlikely.
Although I do believe that the Electoral College is
unlikely to change, what may change is the ease of voting. There has been a
concerted effort by Republicans across the country to make it harder to vote,
particularly targeting Democratic groups. One of the most common ways they have
tried to do this is by enacting laws that require you to show photo ID before
being allowed to vote. The reason they give for introducing photo IDs is that
it will help to prevent voter fraud. The problem is that the only kind of fraud
that photo IDs would help to tackle is when a person pretends to be someone
they’re not. This form of voter fraud is very rare and most elections have no
cases of them at all. Photo IDs are blatantly
unconstitutional, the 24th Amendment to the Constitution states the
following:
“Section 1. The rights of citizens of the
United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice
President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or
Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States or any State by reason of failure to pay and poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to
enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
Photo ID laws are effectively a type of poll tax as these
IDs are not free, but can range from $8 to $20. The groups that tend not to
have the IDs are young people, poor people and ethnic minorities; all groups
who vote Democratic. The type of ID that you can use to vote should also
indicate that the laws are simply a way to oppress the Democratic vote. Why are
concealed handgun licenses acceptable to use, but not student IDs?
Dark red - Strict Photo ID laws Light red - Less strict photo ID laws Burnt Orange - Strict non-photo ID laws Sand - Less strict non-photo ID laws Grey - no ID laws Source: Wikipedia, but it I created this map for Wikipedia
At the moment photo ID laws have been passed in several
swing states; Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Wisconsin. You are required
to show non-photo ID in Colorado, New Hampshire, and Ohio whilst Nevada and
Iowa have no ID requirements when you go to vote. The states to watch for a
change would probably be Nevada and Ohio as both have a Republican legislature
and a Republican governor. Iowa, New Hampshire and Colorado will be unlikely to
change as Democrats control part of the state government there.
Photo IDs are not the only way that Republicans are
trying to restrict the vote. Early voting is used mostly by Democrats, by
cutting early voting, Republicans can successfully reduce the number of
Democrats voting in an election.
Expect a lot of fighting over the next few years in state
legislatures across America – and pay attention, they could effectively decide
the winner in 2016.
So I have left it a week before posting about the US
election results! I wanted to get a feel of what has happened.
The biggest deal was the Senate elections in which the
Democrats were simply devastated by Republicans. At the moment the Republicans have
gained eight seats, which will likely rise to nine when Mary Landrieu loses her
run-off election in December. This means that the Republicans have taken
control of the Senate. They won open seats in Montana, South Dakota, Iowa and
West Virginia and ousted Democratic incumbents in Alaska, Colorado, Arkansas and
North Carolina. Republicans also fended off challenges from Democrats in
Kentucky and Georgia, whilst Pat Roberts successfully beat independent Greg
Orman in Kansas. The surprise was not that the Democrats lost these seats, only
Kay Hagan in North Carolina was leading the polls going into election day, it
was how badly they lost. Going into Election Day the polls had Mark Pryor
losing to Tom Cotton in Arkansas by 5%, he ended up losing by 17%! That is an
incredible Democratic bias of 12%, this meant that Pryor only received 39% of
the vote. Which is a rather large decline from 2008 when the Republicans didn’t
run anyone against him and he got 80% of the vote! Overall the poll averages
were biased towards the Democrats by 4%, the only close race which had a
Republican bias was New Hampshire where there was a 1.2% bias.
The Senate was always going to be difficult for
Democrats, however the gubernatorial elections looked favourable. There were
Republican governors in Wisconsin, Maine, Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania
that looked particularly weak. Unfortunately for Democrats they only managed to
take Pennsylvania, with the Republican governors holding on in the other four
states. To make matters worse they lost open seats in the heavily Democratic
states of Massachusetts and Maryland, and incumbent governor Pat Quinn lost in
Illinois. In Alaska the Republican incumbent was beating by independent, Bill
Walker; this is the first time that Alaska has elected an independent as
governor.
One of the biggest deals of the midterms has barely got
any coverage on the national and international news circuit, and that’s the
elections to the State Houses. They get less coverage for obvious reasons, but
that does not make them less important, especially when you take into account the
aggregate effect of them all. As with elections to all other positions, there
was a Republican tide that left Republicans with the most state legislators since
1928 and the Democrats with control of the fewest state legislatures in their
party’s history! Democrats took control of zero state legislatures whilst
losing both state Houses in Nevada, leaving Republicans with complete control
of Nevada governance. They lost control of lower Houses in West Virginia, New
Hampshire, Minnesota and New Mexico whilst they lost control of state Senates
in New York, Maine, Colorado and Washington.
Obviously this has massive ramifications for the
next few years, if you want to find out more then read my post; “What the Election
Results Mean”.
Most likely scenario is that the Republicans take control
of the Senate. The Republicans need to secure just one of the tossup seats of a
possible three. Democrats need to take both Iowa and Georgia and then get Greg
Orman to caucus with them to hold onto the Senate. Polls at the moment are
putting the Republicans in Iowa and Georgia ahead by 1% point, if the polls are
accurate then a GOP majority is almost certain.
As you can see any kind of pro-Democratic skew in the
polls would result in a Republican majority without a doubt. Interestingly this
scenario means that the Republicans cannot lose Kansas as Orman has promised to
caucus with the party that makes up a majority.
A sign of just how tough the election is going to be,
even a 2% pro-Republican skew in polls doesn’t automatically produce a Democratic majority. Despite that, a 2%
skew would probably produce a Democratic majority. If the Democrats want to win
a majority without Orman’s support, then they need to win three of the five
Tossups (remember that Joe Biden will break a 50-50 tie in favour of
Democrats). It’s slightly tougher for Republicans as they could only afford to
lose one of the Tossups. Considering that a 2% skew would mean that Iowa and
Georgia are actually slightly more favourable towards Democrats and that Colorado
would be a true tossup, it would be a huge struggle.
2% Democratic skew in the polls
Safe Dem
Likely Dem
Leans Dem
Tossup
Leans Rep
Likely Rep
Safe Rep
DE, HI, IL, MA, MN, NJ, NM, OR, RI, VA, MI
North Carolina, New Hampshire
Iowa, Georgia, Kansas,
Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Dakota
A Democratic majority would be all but certain. They
would only need to win one of the tossups to secure a majority without Orman’s
help. Even if they lost all the ones classed as Tossup, they could still court
Orman into caucusing with them.
It feels almost pointless doing this one as the only
changes are states going from leans/likely Republican to likely/safe Republican.
Note: Although this will likely be my final blog post about the elections, I may update my predictions on Twitter. You find me at www.twitter.com/michaeljspence
It has been eight months since I last wrote about the
Senate elections that will be held next week. Since then most of the news has
been good for Republicans, they have made gains in about ten states and lost
ground in just three. Considering they only need to gain six seats to take the
Senate, this is a very good sign for them. The blog FiveThirtyEight, at the
time of writing, predicts that the Republicans have a 64% chance of controlling
the Senate, with the most likely scenario being one in which they control 52
seats to the Democrats 48. I will now review each close state and then make my
updated prediction.
Kansas:
When I posted my Senate elections update in February I
didn’t even mention Kansas, other than to put it into the “Safe Republican”
column of my table. Incumbent Senator Pat Roberts only real worry was a primary
from Tea Party challenger Milton Wolf. Roberts managed to survive the primary,
but he came out severely damaged by revelations that he no longer owned a home
in Kansas. This helped to promote an image of him being an out-of-touch member
of the Washington elite.
You might expect the story to end there as Kansas is a
very red state, the last time Kansas elected a Democrat to the Senate was in 1932! Roberts also had two serious challengers; Democrat Chad Taylor and an
independent Greg Orman, who split the anti-Roberts vote. These two factors
combined to offset his weakness and made it look likely that he was going to scrape
to victory in the Sunflower State. Then came the bombshell that blew the race
wide open, the Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out of the race and endorsed the
independent! This meant that the anti-Roberts vote was no longer split between
two candidates, seriously jeopardising Roberts’ chances! At the moment this
race is probably the closest in the country, don’t be surprised if it ends up
going to a recount.
Rating: Tossup
Iowa:
When I wrote about Iowa earlier this year I noted that
the trend was positive for the Democrats. They had one candidate in the
primary, Bruce Braley, compared to six candidates in the Republican primary. To
make it even better, Braley was leading all candidates in the polls. With less
than a week until the election this has changed completely. According to the
HuffPost pollster average, Republican Joni Ernst is leading Braley 47% to 45.3%. I am genuinely shocked by this; Iowa is a purple state which would lead
you to expect that extremes of right and left would not fare well in Iowa. However
Ernst is a hardcore Tea Partier; she wants to abolish the IRS, the EPA and the
Department of Education. She supports abolishing the federal minimum wage, and
at least partially privatising Medicare. She also supports a personhood
amendment which defines life as beginning at conception, effectively making all
abortions illegal as well as some forms of hormonal birth control.
In a presidential election year she would probably lose,
as the voters she turns off (women, ethnic minorities and young people) all
turn out in larger numbers. My only explanation for how Ernst is doing so well
is that the Republican vote is especially energised, whilst the independent and
Democratic vote is depressed.
Rating Tossup
If all this was starting to get a bit much, have a break and watch this rather hilarious campaign ad from Joni Ernst.
Georgia
Back in February it was difficult to say how Georgia was
going to play out due to the number of people running in both primaries, eight
in the Republican and five in the Democratic. On the Republican side you have
David Purdue, a businessman. On the Democratic side there is Michelle Nunn, the
CEO of a charity, Points of Light, and the daughter of popular former Senator
Sam Nunn. At the moment Nunn is doing surprisingly well in the Peach State,
considering that it is a red state. Purdue is not helped by the relative
unpopularity of Georgian Republicans. Governor Nathan Deal is trying to fend
off a serious challenge from former President Jimmy Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter.
It has caused Republicans to have a completely split message, Purdue is telling
Georgians that the economy is terrible and that you should blame Obama and the
Democrats. Whilst in the other race Deal is telling Georgians that the economy is
doing great and that he should get the credit. Not exactly a consistent message
that will win over independents come Election Day.
Current rating: Tossup
Colorado
I previously rated Colorado as likely Democrat, and it
looks like I could be totally wrong. The
main reason for this belief was that I thought Ken Buck would win the Republican
primary. In 2010 Buck had failed to unseat a much weaker Democrat in more favourable
conditions. However it was Cory Gardener who won the Republican primary, he immediately
showed that he had learnt from Buck’s mistakes. Gardener has been a supporter
of controversial personhood amendments, and is still a co-sponsor of a federal bill that would make the position the law. However he claims that he has
changed his mind (70% of Colorado voters rejecting a personhood amendment in 2010 may have been very persuasive). In the summer he declared his support for
over-the-counter contraceptives. He is hoping to close the gender gap, or at
least not to provoke women into turning out to vote against him.
Interestingly there is a personhood amendment on the
ballot again in Colorado, if Mark
Udall can successfully tie Gardener to the amendment then he might be able to
scrape a win on Election Day.
Current rating: Leans Republican
Cory Gardener has plenty of reasons to smile, he's winning a race that many expected him to lose. Source: www.thinkprogress.com
North Carolina
In a mid-term election year with a Democratic President,
you might think that a Democratic Senator in a Republican leaning state would
have little chance of success. Especially considering her poor approval
ratings, in a poll released on the 20th of October, 41% of voters
approve of Senator Kay Hagan job against 50% who disapprove. However, conditions
in North Carolina may mean that she holds onto her Senate seat.
In 2012 Pat McCrory won the governorship of North
Carolina, this meant that for the first time in over a century, Republicans
controlled both the governorship and the legislature. They used this
opportunity to pursue a very right-wing agenda. This has not gone down well
with North Carolinian voters, in the poll mentioned before the legislature boasted an
approval rating of just 25%. It has not been difficult for Hagan to tie her
Republican challenger, Thom Tillis, to the failures of state Republicans
considering he is the Republican leader of the State House of Representatives.
Current Rating: Leans Democrat
Kentucky
Kentucky is one of two states which actually might
exchange a Republican Senator for a Democratic one (remember Greg Orman in
Kansas is an independent). Back in February Kentucky was possibly the closest
race in the country, eight months later it has slowly drifted towards the
Republican. Flipping Kentucky would be a massive coup for the Democrats, even
if they lost control of the Senate, as the incumbent Republican, Mitch
McConnell is the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate!
Toppling Mitch McConnell has been made possible by his
serious unpopularity in Kentucky. In recent years he has been the most
unpopular Senator, with a majority of Kentuckians saying they disapproved of
his performance. Luckily for the Democrats they secured a very strong candidate
in Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Secretary of State for Kentucky.
However as we get closer to polling day it looks
increasingly likely that Mitch McConnell will hang onto his Senate seat by a
narrow margin. At one point the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (the
committee tasked with getting more Democrats elected to the Senate) actually
stopped running ads in Kentucky, although they reversed that decision a week
ago.
Current Rating: Leans Republican
If you need another break, here is 2 minutes of Mitch McConnell released by his campaign. The first ten seconds are particularly hilarious, a smile just doesn't look right on Mitch.
Louisiana:
If the Republicans want to take back control of the
Senate, then the really need to win Louisiana. If they lose Louisiana then they
probably won’t control the Senate. Interestingly if Republicans are successful
then this will be the first time they have won this seat since 1877! It will
also be the first time they’ve held both of Louisiana’s Senate seats since
1872.
The incumbent Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu is Chair
of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, a committee that is
essential to the economy of Louisiana thanks to the oil industry. If Landrieu
wins and the Democrats lose control of the Senate then she would become the
ranking member on the committee instead. This would mean that she is still
extremely important, are Louisianians really going to give up Landrieu for
someone who will have no influence over the Committee that has most relevance
to their state? Probably.
At the moment it looks highly likely that the Republican
challenger, Bill Cassidy, will beat Landrieu to become the next Senator from
Louisiana.
Current Rating: Leans Republican
Arkansas:
The Natural State has become significantly more
Republican since Mark Pryor first got elected in 2002. When he assumed office,
Democrats still dominated Arkansas; they had both Senators, both State Houses,
three of four of Arkansas’ US House Representatives. Only Governor Mike
Huckabee was a Republican, and that changed in 2006 when Mike Beebe won the
election. However the state has gotten consistently more hostile to Democrats
in the past few years. In 2010 Pryor’s fellow Senator Blanche Lincoln was
crushed by her Republican opponent, John Boozman, and the Republicans made
gains in the State Houses and the US House. In 2012 Democrats lost control of
both of the State Houses and their final US House Representative was defeated.
Pryor is now the only Democrat representing Arkansas in Congress, in 2008 there
was only one Republican.
Pryor was always going to face a tough re-election, even
if he was the most conservative Senate Democrat in 2013, according to the American Conservative Union. It is looking very likely that Pryor will lose to Tom
Cotton, current polls have Cotton up four points and FiveThirtyEight gives
Cotton an 83% probability that he will win.
Current Rating: Leans Republican
Here's a campaign ad from Mark Pryor, if you couldn't tell that he was from a very conservative state with a lot of Evangelical Christians, you certainly can from this ad!
There is one more race I want to talk about that I think is
interesting, but is not close (in my opinion); Alaska. To those of you paying
attention to the mid-terms this year may be very confused by my Alaska rating.
It has been constantly talked about as one of the closest races, either party
could win. FiveThirtyEight currently has Alaska as the third closest race, and
the HuffPost Pollster Average has Republican Dan Sullivan leading Democrat Mark
Begich by 3.6%, not the widest margin. As well as that ballot initiatives on the minimum wage and marijuana legalisation will almost certainly drive up
turnout amongst Democrats, in a way that may be hidden to pollsters. But it is
the potential for a skew in the polls that has left me so certain that
Democrats will lose this race. Alaska is notoriously hard to poll, in 2008
polls for the US House seat were off by an average of 12.5%! The polls have
also been consistently skewed in
favour of Democrats, this is true of every race since 2000. The average skew in
favour of Democrats is 7.2%, which is an awful lot. This is why my rating for
Alaska is likely Republican.
One of the really interesting things that could happen
this November is the potential that we won’t know who controls the Senate the
quite a while after Election Day. Three states have the potential to throw a
spanner into the works: Kansas, Georgia and Louisiana.
In Georgia and Louisiana
if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, then the top two candidates
fight it out in a run-off. In Louisiana the run-off is almost certainly going to
happen, the run-off will be held on the 6th of December. The Georgia
run-off is less likely but still has a good chance of happening. However
Georgia’s run-off won’t happen until the 6th of January, which is
three days after Congress gets sworn in! This could mean we don’t know who
controls the Senate in the next Congress until after Congress actually begins.
The reason why Kansas could through a spanner into the works is that Orman has
said that he could caucus with either party. If the Senate is split then this
would mean that for the next two years Orman would probably be the most
important person in American politics after President Obama. He has said that
even if he decides to caucus with one Party, he could change his affiliation if
he dislikes how that Party is running the Senate!
In 2013 G8 leaders agreed that they would not pay ransoms for captured citizens. Recently it has emerged that Italy, Germany and France may have renegaded on their promise and paid ransoms to the terrorist organisation ISIL. Considering that other countries have decided to pay the ransoms, should Britain and America follow suit? The short answer: No.
By paying ransoms to terrorists you endanger other westerners by making them bigger targets. The terrorists know that governments are prepared to pay ransoms, and so they will go out of their way to capture more westerners in the hopes of making more money. Different groups have been demanding money for hostages from the American and British governments for decades with little success. The last known case of either government paying ransoms for hostage was the Iran-Contra Affair that nearly got Reagan impeached in the 1980s. So why do Brits and Americans continue to be taken hostage if their governments refuse to pay ransoms? Well sometimes families manage to raise enough money to pay the ransom, helping to maintain the cycle. Another reason is that they put themselves in a win-win situation. If they get the money, then they have more money to fund their activities. On the other hand if they don’t receive the money and they kill the hostage, then they receive a huge amount of publicity, which is exactly what they want.
The more important reason why you shouldn’t pay the ransoms is that the money paid is financing terrorists. ISIL demanded $132million (£80 million) for the release of American journalist James Foley. If the American government had given ISIL that money, they would have used it to fund their war in Iraq and Syria. This would have resulted in hundreds of people dead and ISIL would have been in a stronger position.
Thankfully the British public understand this, in aYouGov poll conducted in early September 68% of respondents said that it was wrong to pay the ransoms, compared to 9% who said it was right and 24% who said that they “don’t know”. This is encouraging as it means there is no pressure from the public to do the wrong thing.
As someone who was always a very staunch no, I am
delighted that Scotland has voted to stay in the union. Yet do not believe for
a second that this means that questions and issues raised during the campaign
will be ignored until the next referendum. I say next referendum as if nothing
changes then another referendum will be inevitable, as will a yes result. The referendum
has invigorated people, and the demand for change is far too great for
politicians across the United Kingdom to ignore. We need a “Great British
Debate” on how to reform our country, a debate which involves every part of the
country and every political party small or large, not just the big three and
the SNP. We must find a way to make British democracy more representative by
replacing First Past the Post. We need to federalise the United Kingdom with
defined, and equal powers for the parliaments created, including regional
parliaments for England. This is the greatest opportunity we have had since the
end of WWII to radically reform Britain. Let’s do it.
A new method of voting for MPs
In the 2010 General Election, the Tories won 36.4% of the
vote and 47.1% of the seats, labour won 29% of the vote and 39% of the seats,
whilst the Liberal Democrats won 23% of the vote yet only 8% of the seats! This
is clearly not particularly democratic, but the 2010 General Election was one
of the most representative elections we have had! For example; in 2005 Labour
won 35.2% of the vote and 55.2% of the seats!
I do not support full proportional representation for a
couple of reasons; I believe that it is important to have local representatives
that are elected locally, which
cannot be done under proportional representation. I also believe that when
selecting a government you need to have a balance between democracy and
effective government. Having proportional representation frequently leads to
reduced government efficiency due to more coalitions of many different parties
forming. It also eradicates any chance that independents or regionalist parties
will get elected. I believe the best way to balance the interests of democracy
with effective government is the d’Hondt method. This is the way we send MEPs
to the European Parliament.
I propose merging constituencies into ‘mega
constituencies’, which would send around 4 MPs to parliament each. This would
mean that you maintain a local representative, have a more democratic system
without causing coalitions of half a dozen parties.
Giving votes to 16 and 17 year olds
Another important step forward in democracy would be to
give 16 and 17 year olds the right to vote, as they received in the referendum.
It is supported by the Liberal Democrats (who had it in their 2010 manifesto)
and the Labour Party (Miliband announced the policy during last year’s Labour
Party Conference) but opposed by the Conservatives. As a country we have
decided that at 16 you are mature enough to leave school, raise a family and
join the military. Surely that means we have decided already that they are mature
enough to vote.
House of Lords Reform
It is time to get rid of the remaining hereditary peers
in the House of Lords altogether, along with the Church of England Bishops. It
is also time to make the chamber at least partially elected, to reflect the
views of the people of the country. The reason why I do not want a wholly
elected House of Lords is because I believe that it can be beneficial to the
country to have people who are in Parliament because of their expertise, rather
than their electability. Technocracy in moderation is a good thing. Quite what
proportion of the House should be elected is up for debate, but I believe it
should be no lower than 1/3. However, I do not want the House of Lords to have
the power to veto laws, as at the end of the day it should be only the people’s
representatives that decide whether or not a law should pass.
Federalising the United Kingdom
This will be the hardest part of the whole process and
will require a lot of hard work from every part and party of the United
Kingdom. I completely agree with Ed Miliband that we should have a
constitutional convention within the United Kingdom some time after next year’s
election. Each of the new parliaments should have the same defined powers along
a similar line to the states that make up the USA. A great debate should occur
over what powers these new parliaments should have. How can they raise taxes or
spend money? Should they control their own education systems? What about the
NHS and benefits? Since this debate is only just beginning, I do not know
exactly where my opinions are just yet. Once I decide on a point of view, I
will be sure to inform you!
So involve yourself in the Great British Debate, read up
about the different possibilities, write to your local representatives at every
level and make sure to change this country for the better!
