Salmond, the millionaires and the historian.

I was going to do a rant about Trump, but the guy kind of satirises himself with the likes of "I am the evidence" and so self-evidently deluded, what's the point of saying any more.

Instead I'm going to offer a few thoughts on the current woes of Alex Salmond. Usually the SNP spin machine is quite literally second to none in Scotland in terms of controlling and manipulating the stories. However, things haven't been running all their way in the last few weeks.

The Millionaires 

First there were the headlines about millionaire SNP donor Brian Soutar having bought Big Eck's recommendation for an honour with his donation. (Although a more interesting question, given the policy u-turn on bus regulation shortly after the donation, was whether he also bought their transport policy).

Then this week we have the twin barrels of Mr Murdoch and Mr Trump. Murdoch's advisor tells the Levenson enquiry into phone-hacking that basically Salmond offered to speak to Jeremy Hunt (who has his own heap of woes to deal with) whenever they (news international) needed him to. Then in wades Mr Trump with his claims of assurances offered to him that no wind farm would be built...

Now here's the thing, I don't trust Salmond, I certainly don't trust Murdoch and I my opinions of Trump are probably best not put in print, but his attempts to effectively blackmail a democratic institution are not welcome here! I'm also not altogether convinced I care who is the wrong or right here, it's a bit sordid whichever way you look at it. The things is that Salmond has gone out of his way to court support (financial or otherwise) from these millionaires and to play in the big boy's game. Maybe now he's realising the true cost of that.

The Historian

The other story that caught my attention was the "historian" David Starkey making comments comparing Salmond to Hitler. Now that's not really what I want to get into - comparisons to Hitler are always crass and hardly ever justified (certainly not in this case), but let's face it Starkey has never been shy about stirring up controversy for the purposes of promoting his own ego.

What interested me was the response from Salmond's office, which included the phrase that this was"an insult to Scotland and the people of Scotland". Er, no it wasn't! It was an insult (and a nasty one) to Salmond individually but not to Scots in general. This isn't the first time I've noticed Salmond and the SNP using this kind of rhetoric - and it's dangerous. A criticism or questioning of the SNP is not a criticism or questioning of Scotland, but too often they make it out to be. It's a habit that they need to break before the real independance debate begins otherwise any real debate on the merits or otherwise will be impossible if the response to any query is an accusation of anti-scottishness. All that will serve to do is enflame English-Scottish tensions and stifle real debate and that is a dangerous game to play!

The Independance Referendum Phoney War

So, the Referendum is the big story this week and the opening shots in the battle are being fired. Except that they're not really. Behind the sensationalist headlines, what is really happening is the start of a process towards agreement on how the referendum will be carried. Sure, there's some jockeying for the best negotiating position in that, but really there is more agreement than might be supposed from the headlines. Yes, both sides are trying to position themselves (or more accurately the other side) where they want them, Salmond is trying to paint the coalition as unwelcome interferers in Scotland and Scotland's business, whilst the unionists are trying to make Salmond out to be headstrong, petty and reckless. Truth to be told, there's probably some accuracy in both accounts, but neither will have much bearing on the overall outcome.

So what are the issues being discussed at the moment:

1. There will be a referendum. This is now beyond dispute. The Westminster government has acknowledged that the SNP have a democratic mandate to hold one following the results last May. Holyrood does not currently have the legal authority to carry this out, but Westminster is willing to devolve the powers. The question will be what conditions come attached to that devolution of powers. This is the current battleground.

2. The Timing Noises from the coaliton were of trying to force it in the next 18 months. They forced Salmond to set a date of Autumn 2014. Noises from Westminster now indicate that this should be acceptable to all.

3. Who will Oversee the Referendum? The coalition want the Electoral Commission to be in charge. Salmond objects that they are directly answerable to Westminster and therefore unacceptable. In my view, Salmond's on weak ground here - any body set up by a Nationalist adminitration in Holyrood without cross-party support would have questionable legitimacy to oversee such a referendum. I would also question how far Salmond can push the objections to the Electoral Commission given that they oversaw the elections that put him in power - there would come a put where he would, in effect, be questioning his own legitimacy. Personally, I would be surprised if the Electoral Commission wasn't involved in overseeing the referendum.

4. What will the Question be? The coalition are adamant that it must be a simple yes-no for independance. The SNP seem keen of including some kind of option or second vote for further devolution (devo-max). The coalition say that that is not just a matter for Scotland as it would have implications for Wales, Northern Ireland and other parts of the Union. Back come the SNP, butt out, this is none of your business. Well, that's the gist of it. The arguments on both sides are rather weak - as far as I'm aware there was no mention of devo-max in the SNP's manifesto, therefore there is no mandate for it to be included in the referendum. Again, I'm not sure how far Salmond can push this without it looking like we know we're going to lose the independance vote, but... On the coalition side, devolution was totally uneven under the last government and it was only the Welsh referendum last year that brough things anywhere near being consistent. The coalition might well argue that this is a new government doing things differently, but its hard to argue against Scotland having had a different relationship to the rest of the Union for hundreds of years. It might well come down to which side has the best negotiating team.

Politically speaking, Labour has the most to lose from devo-max as they are likely (especially with the proposed boundary changes) to need their Scottish MPs in order to govern at Westminster and devo-max would throw the West Lothian question into even sharper perspective. For the SNP, it would obviously allow them to claim some kind of victory in the case of losing the referendum. For the Tories, there is a careful balancing act - as committed unionists they can't stomach the idea of an independant Scotland and even devo-max is probably loosening the bonds of the union too much. On the other hand, there is an argument that they wouldn't want to see the SNP humiliated and a spent political force 6-9 months before the next General Election. They're not going to be making any advances in Scotland any time soon, the LDs could well still be feeling the coalition backlash north of the border and the Tories need some kind of buffer against Labour up here, even if its only the SNP rather than Labour taking seats off the Liberals. Winning the referendum but allowing the SNP to continue arguing about the option they weren't allowed maybe allows the SNP to continue as a challenge to Labour into 2015.

5. The West Sheppey Question* Who gets to vote? Salmond wants 16 and 17 year olds to have the vote? Should Scots living outside Scotland get a vote? How about Scots living outside the UK? What about Scots serving in the armed forces elsewhere in the UK and therefore registered there? And how do you define who is Scottish in this context anyway? After all, we don't (yet?) have Scottish citizenship and surely you would need something tighter than the current rules on who's eligible to play football for Scotland (anyone whose Great-grandmother once visited Edinburgh Castle). Solved all that. How about non-Brits living in Scotland - currently for the General Election Irish and Commonwealth citizens can vote, whilst for Holyrood and local elections any EU national resident in Scotland can vote. Should they get a say on whether Scotland should be an independant country. These are possibly the most difficult questions about the process and nobody has even begun to really provide answers yet.

*  This term was coined on an online forum after Gordon Henderson, the conservative MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, asked in the Commons whether his grandfather, a Scot living in England, would be eligible to vote.

Thursday - some predictions

Scottish Elections

This should have been an election tailor-made for a Labour victory. Now in opposition at both Westminster and Holyrood with unpopular cuts being forced through. Two months ago, Labour looked unassailable for Holyrood - surely they couldn't blow it from here. Step forward Iain Gray and co. Most polls now have the SNP consistently in front. An admittedly rather suspect one for STV today had Labour down to the mid-20s in both votes. Whereas it looked like Labour would be reclaiming the seats it narrowly lost to the SNP 4 years ago (Glasgow Southern, Stirling, Edinburgh Eastern; Almond Valley, etc....) now it looks more like a question of which seats the SNP will add to therir gains from Labour - Linlithgow is the most likely to go, followed by Aberdeen Central, then maybe Clydesdale where the absence of a Lib Dem candidate could produce an unusual result. (There are also large votes for parties no longer standing in Glasgow Kelvin and Strathkelvin and Bearsden, which make them slightly unpredictable).

Both parties will look to capitalise on the Lib-Dems unpopularity. Labour will almost certainly take Dunfermline off them and will look to take Edinburgh Southern (where the sitting MSP has a strong personal vote and potentially a lot of Tory/SNP votes to squeeze). The SNP will be looking to take the Lib Dems two Highland seats and also Aberdeen South (where Nicol Stephen is standing down). There are even some rumours that Tavish Scott may be in trouble from a Independant in Shetland (I reckon he'll still be pretty safe though).

The fall away of Labour's campaign has left most of the Tory constituencies looking a bit safer. McLetchie should now hold Edinburgh Pentlands. Galloway might possibly be a gain for the SNP though. They might also lose some list seats

The Greens are of course focussing on the list vote. Their most likely sources of seats in order are (I reckon)
Lothian, Glasgow, Highlands, North East, Mid and Fife, South, 2nd Lothians, West, Central.

My prediction:
SNP 54
Lab 46
Con 15
LD 7
Grn 6
Margo 1

Wales
The Labour campaign here seems to have held up better. The may or may not get an overall majority - I reckon they might come just short. It might be a funny election in that the Tories could lose most of their constituencies, but still finish up overall. On the other hand Plaid and the LDs could both hold their constituencies and finish down. Also a chance of UKIP getting their first AM.

I'm going for
Lab 30
Con 15
Plaid 11
LD 4


AV Referendum
After an amazingly poor campaign by both sides, the referendum will be lost, by something like 59% to 41%.


Leicester South by-election
Lost amidst all the other elections, there's a by-election in Leicester South (a seat the Lib-Dems won in a by-election in 2003 - they won't get close this time). It will be another smooth ride for Labour.

Lab 57.3
Con 19.9
LD 14.8
UKIP 6.8
Loonies 1.5

English Local Elections
 Inevitable gains for Labour, but they are coming back from a very low point. I do get the sense that they have lost a wee bit of momentum and the results won't be as pleasing as they would have liked. They might finish about 1200 seats up (900 from the Tories; 300 from the LDs). What will be interesting to see to tell how much Labour are actually winning voters back, or how much the coalition is losing them, is how Labour fares against parties like the Greens where they are in contention in places like Brighton and Norwich. Looks like being a bad set of locals for the BNP though ;-)

What a Choice...

I will be voting on May 5th as I want my vote to count both in the regional list vote for Holyrood (for the Greens) and in the AV referendum (Yes). However, when it comes to the constituency vote for Holyrood I'm faced with a completely uninspiring choice - in my particular constituency (as in many this year) the choice is just the candidates from the main 4 Scottish parties. In all cases, I can come up with very good reasons not to vote for them, but am struggling to come up with a single decent reason to vote for any of them.

The Conservatives seem to have put together a manifesto that is totally blind to real issues of poverty and inequality that Scotland faces, not to mention a head in the sand approach to pressures on the environment. Labour still seem to be in absolute denial about their role in damaging the UK economy and creating the pressure for the cuts and have come up with a bunch of crowd-pleasing slogans and no money to pay for them. The SNP also have a huge unexplained financial hole in their plans and are an environmental disaster with their support for more fossil fuel use and more road-building. As for the Lib-Dems, who would normally be my default choice, not only are there the compromises of coalition, which in themselves wouldn't put me off, but actually more importantly, the absolute insanity of what seems to be their central campaign idea of financing their ideas by selling off Scottish Water's debt. That's not going to end well in the long term. If Labour mortgaged our children's future, the Scottish Lib-Dems now seem to want to re-mortgage it.

So, the choice is do I hold my nose and put the cross beside one of the above or do I, for the first time in my voting life, spoil the ballot paper. Its not a practice that I normally approve of, but if I was to do it, I'd like to do it quite imaginatively by, for example, writing in a candidate that I would genuinely like to see elected to the Scottish parliament. Any suggestions?

The Best Argument Against Proportional Representation???

Many of you may not recognise the woman opposite - she's Marine Le Pen, daughter of Jean-Marie and leader of France's far-right Le Front National (in other words you could see her as a blonde Nick Griffin, but that's probably not a particularly pleasant mental picture). She's also been doing rather well in the polls recently - at least well in terms of getting votes, but not seats.

The last two weekends in March saw the Cantonal elections in France for about 2000 seats. The French system works rather differently - over two rounds of voting on successive weekends. After the first round:
- If any candidate gets over 50% of the vote, they are elected without a second round
- Any candidate securing votes of over 12.5% of those registered to vote (NB not those who actually vote) proceeds to the second round
- If less than two candidates meet this requirement, the top two automatically proceed to the second round.

Le Front National polled over 20% in the first round nationally, winning them places in about 400 second round contests. In the second round, they polled almost 12% (at an average of over 30% for each candidate they actually had standing). And how many seats did they win - just 2. That's right - 2 or roughly 0.1% of seats. By contrast the Greens managed to double their first round vote to about 8%, but ultimately won 27 seats. Under a proportional system, Le Front National would have won 300-400 seats probably.

Now, in reality i don't think that keeping any party (however obnoxious they are) out of power should be the deciding factor in choosing an electoral system (something that neither campaign in the upcoming referendum seem to agree with me about - both seem to be arguing that a vote for the other gives the BNP more power), but it is food for thought. And with Ms Le Pen currently polling around the same levels as M Sarkozy and the leading socialist contenders, it looks likely that she might make quite a splash in next year's presidential elections.

Elsewhere in Europe (using a proportional system) there was better news for Greens. Two German state elections also at the end of March saw them increase their number of seats in Baden-Wurttemberg from 17 to 36 and in Rhineland Palatinate from 0 to 18.

Meanwhile, closer to home, our own  nasty far-right seems to be struggling somewhat - it looks like the BNP will fielding well under half the number of candidates in this year's English local elections as they did in the last equivalent elections.

Why I won't be voting for the SNP in May

OK, the Scottish elections are something like a month and a half away and my mind is already made up in terms of how I will be voting for the regional list, but the absence of a Green candidate in my constituency means I still have a choice to make about that. However, I might already be reaching a decision by process of elimination - I've seen nothing so far that would persuade me to break my longstanding habits and vote either Labour or Tories. Added to that I can categorically say that I won't be vote for the SNP.

This has nothing to do with independance (an issue which, as an Englishman in Scotland, I am surprisingly neutral about). No, my decision is based on what for me are the two most important issues in this election - in the short-term there are the cuts facing Scotland and in the long-term there are the environmental issues. In the first case I find the stance of the SNP contradictory and in the second their track record is now approaching the disastrous.

The Cuts
If I was to put the parties on a specturm with regard to their attitudes towards the cuts, at one end you have 
The Tories who, however much the try to dress it up as necessity, ideologically like the the ideas of cutting back state funding.
Next come the Lib-Dems who seem to have been persuaded that the cuts are necessary due to the economic situation.
Somewhere in the middle you have Labour and the SNP both of whom seeming to be appealling to the popular vote by appearing to stand against the cuts and the evil coalition who are viciously imposing them on poor Scotland. Labour are doing this whilst offering no alternative strategy and doing the whole "No sir, it wasn't us, a big bank did it and ran away" act as to how the country ended up in an economic mess in the first place. The SNP are attacking Labour for this, but still not offering an alternative to handing on the cuts from Westminster. Indeed they allowed the democratically mandated tax varying powers of Holyrood (which could offer some alternative vision) to lapse into a state where they could no longer be used without informing parliament (symptomatic of a contempt for parliamentary process they have shown around a number of issues). Meanwhile they exacerbate the situation be cheap populist vote-catching measures like the council tax freeze and by huge, expensive photo ops for Salmond unnecessary public projects like the Forth crossing (of which more later). For a party whose whole raison d'etre is the separation of Scotland from the UK, this unwillingness to explore Scottish alternatives to the Westminster solution, but it actually fits with the way the party has acted in local government across Scotland - they complain about cuts to get support and then cut when in power. It might actually be a fiscally resonsible approach compared to Labour, but they need to stop trying to milk the anti-cuts vote so hard - that is not where they are standing by their actions!

At the other end of this spectrum is, of course, The Greens who say that the cuts are going too far and are wanting and prepared to use the powers the Scottish parliament has to try and find alternatives in Scotland.

The Environment
The SNP, like the other major parties, do their best to try and present themselves as green. Salmond will make speeches about Scotland's potential for renewable energy, but politicians need to be judged by what they do and not what they say and at every opportunity the SNP has shown its loyalty to the coal and oil industries, a dependance on short-term solutions that are denying us the chance to build for the future. The SNP favour building more coal-fired power stations in Scotland rather than investing more in renewable sources, they will try to explain away the environmental impact of this by talking about the carbon capture potential of the North Sea, but there they are talking about technology that has yet to be proved feasible anywhere in the world. They favour allowing deep-sea drilling off Shetland, using the same technology that failed so dramatically in the Gulf of Mexico. Even without the environmental impact, there is a short-termism to these solutions - fossil fuels are running out, investing more in them now is denying us the chance to prepare properly for that time. The fact is that Scotland could be producing almost twice its electricity needs from entirely renewable sources within 20 years or so. If we were to invest now, we could be at the forefront of Green energy. This just won't happen under the SNP.

They also remain committed to more road building projects, like the new Forth crossing, which will cost £2billion (budgetted - as we all know, major projects in Scotland seem to have a problem sticking to budget!). Repairing the existing bridge, which is only 50 years old, could be achieved for a very small fraction of that cost. The costs for that project include a £100 million liability cost to BP as the new crossing will be built across a pipeline thar carries an awful lot of oil. Again, the SNP decided to withhold this information and costing from the parliament when the project was being considered (for "security" reasons). At the same time they are withdrawing funding from an initiative which was working, which had the support of businesses, to get more freight off the roads and back on to the rails.

I could go on, but I won't.

The AV Referendum - why I will be voting yes.

The legislation has finally made it through the House of Lords fillibusting and we will have a referendum on 5th May. Both the Yes and No campaigns are kicking off and, to be honest, they're both talking nonsense so far.

The No campaign seems to be centring around nonsensical posters about needing maternity units and bullet proof armour rather than a new voting system. This is nonsense not only because on May 5th voters won't be given the choice of AV or a new maternity unit, but its also nonsense because the figure they are quoting £250 million has actually been plucked out of thin air and it has no bearing to any costs that anybody who knows anything about things has come up with.

Other stupid arguments against AV - its too complicated - no actually I think most of the UK electorate can cope with ranking things in order of preference. Also, there have been arguments that AV is more likely to produce hung parliaments (if that is a bad thing) - there is little evidence of that, it is, after all, not a proportional system and in 1997 would have produced an even larger Labour majority. As to the idea advanced by some (not the actual No campaign, but some Labour supporters) that we should vote No to punish Nick Clegg - that's just ridiculous. One way or another Clegg will be gone in a few elections, we may have the electoral system we vote for for some time.

That said, the Yes camp are hardly doing much better:
AV is fairer votes - not necessarily - see above about 1997 - it is not a proportional system and can disproportionately exaggerate big swings.
It will ensure that MPs are elected with 50% of the vote  - no it won't as it won't be compulsory to rank all candidates (it is in Australia, I think) so some (in some cases many votes) will not transfer, meaning that candidates can still get elected with less than 50% of the vote.
Every vote will count/it will do away with safe seats - not true and not true. Strictly every vote counts under First Past the Post (or alternatively only votes for the winning candidate count) - I don't understand what difference AV will make). As to safe seats, in most safe seats the winning candidate (the monkey in the blue/red rosette) will get over 50% on first preferences anyway, so AV will make no difference.

However, I will be voting Yes on 5th May for two main reasons:

1. A No vote probably spells the end to electoral reform for another generation - that would be a shame. Personally I would have preferred that they had started with reforming the House of Lords (an elected house using STV) but lets not give up now.
2. The preferential system of voting actually suits the way I approach things - I'm not rabidly pro-any party to the extent that I would say them and nobody else. I am probably more along the lines of being 70% in favour of one party, 60% in agreement with another. AV allows me to express this better - to say I want him, but if not him then her. For example, at the last election my preference would have been Green, with a second preference for Lib-Dem. I ended up voting Lib-Dem as I felt that under FPTP a Green vote would have no impact. Under AV I have more room to express a more nuanced opinion.

Of course, AV is not totally new to the UK. Scottish local councils are elected using STV, but when there is a by-election for just one seat, STV becomes by default an AV system. The results can be quite interesting - for one thing, the transfers do tend to go all over the place and not just in the directions you might expect. There have been 4 Scottish local by-elections since the last general election. 2 were safe Labour holds, although interestingly they failed to get over 50% despite polling over 40% on first preferences. The other two should have been SNP wins, but the transfers saw independant candidates take the seats despite trailing on 1st preferences. Its a different kind of democracy, but not necessarily a worse one.

So is Gerry Adams still an MP or not?

Oh what a farce! Only in Britain could this happen. You see Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein MP for West Belfast) wants to resign his position so he can stand for the parliament in the Irish Republic instead. Only the problem is the British MPs can't just resign. Traditionally this is because being an MP is thought of as a serious office that shouldn't just be chucked away lightly. Therefore, if a British MP wants to resign he needs to apply for an office of profit under the Crown (either Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds or Baron of the Manor of Northstead.

Unfortunately for Mr Adams, a staunch Irish Republican accepting a job from the British Crown would be completely unacceptable. Thus he just wrote a letter to the Speaker resigning. However, in order to maintain tradition this has been interpreted in Whitehall as a request for one of the said offices and Mr Adams has been duly appointed to the Crown Office of Baron of the Manor of Northstead. Duly appointed, that is, without his knowledge until David Cameron stood up in the Commons and announced he'd accepted the office. There followed hasty denials of any such acceptance by Sinn Fein and here we are at a very British impasse with nobody really sure whether Belfast West techinically has an MP or not. It really is quite hilarious in its own way.

One possible way forward would be for Mr Adams to do something in order to get himself expelled from the Commons (actually, just speaking in the House would technically be enough, as not having taking the oath he is barred from speaking despite being an MP). However, this would require him setting foot in Westminster something he has steadfastly refused to do in 23 years as an MP. And so the saga rolls on...

Political Predictions for 2011.

Just for a bit of fun at the start of the year, I'm going to share some thoughts on how things may go at the polls this year.

The first major test for the big parties will of course be the

Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election.
 Having previously said that I could see any of the big three parties winning this, I now think that things are (unfortunately) leaning towards a Labour win. I say unfortunately not for party political reasons, but because I would like to see the electorate punish the party and not just the individual for the types of wrongdoing that Mr Woolas perpetrated. However, it looks like Labour will get away with it, probably with an increased majority. With the current state of the polls (Lib-Dems possibly down to around 8% nationally (depending on polling company)), the Conservatives being slightly less than whole-hearted in their campaigning and the final weeks of the campaign likely to be dominated by the VAT rise and George Osborne, there is little playing in the Coalition parties favour here.

Almost as interesting as the main battle, will be the performance of the minor parties. With 7 other candidates standing it will be hard for any to save their deposit (5% of the vote required). I wouldn't expect the Greens to do well - this is not their area. Anything much above 1.5% for them will be a good result (and undoubtedly bad for the Lib-Dems as it would probably mean a significant loss of disaffected yellows). The BNP probably stand the best chance of saving their deposit - they polled 11% here in 2001 and saved their deposit at last year's general election. However, support for UKIP has been growing in the area and they stand a chance of pipping Griffin's racists for 4th place. I'm not usually one to cheer on UKIP, but in this particular case, I'll make an exception. In fact it would be nice to see the BNP come behind the Loonies, but it ain't going to happen. My prediction of the result (offered elsewhere) is:

Labour  35.2%
LD 29.8%
Con 22.8%
BNP 4.7%
UKIP 3.5%
English Democrats 1.6%
Green 1.2%
Official Monster Raving Loony Party 0.7%
Pirate 0.3%
Church of the Militant Elvis 0.2%

Local Elections in May
The local elections will probably be more good news for Labour, but Ed Milliband shouldn't get too excited just yet. MOst seats up for grabs this year were last contested in 2007 which was very bad year for Labour. The kind of year where an unpopular government loses council seats that under more normal circumstances they would hold quite easily. Therefore it would only be natural to expect that now, with Labour in opposition, many hundreds of those seats will be won back from the Tories and Lib-Dems. For the Lib-Dems it might be a particularly grim night. They might hold up, or even make some progress against the Tories in the rural South and South-West, but in the North and especially the urban areas like Liverpool and Newcastle, where they had been making inroads for the last decade or so, Lib-Dem councillors will fall in large numbers.

Welsh Assembly
Wales is also likely to be grim for the Lib-Dems in May. Latest opinion polls show that they may be reduced to just one or two assembly seats. In fact, the last poll would have them coming behind the Communist party in one of the regional lists! Labour will make gains, plaid will stand still, The Tories might go either up or down but not hugely, and there is a slim chance that UKIP might just gain their first ever AM. At the end of the day, I reckon Labour will either just achieve or just fall short of an overall majority. Either way I would expect them to go it alone in government rather than continuing the present coalition with Plaid.

Sottish Parliament
Labour should also again become the largest party in the Scottish parliament. This isn't saying much as they require only a swing of 1 seat from the results of a bad year. I would expect them to finish 10-20 seats ahead of the SNP this time. The Tories might lose a seat or two, but I would expect generally they will lose a few constituencies but make it up on the list vote and finish just down on the current levels. The Lib-Dems will also be reduced, but not as badly as Wales (their strength in some parts is, I reckon, too historically entrenched) and they may finish with about 10 seats or so. The Greens will pick up a few extra, probably finihing with 4-5, maybe even up to 6 or 7. Again, I would expect Labour to try and govern as a minority, but it would certainly be in the Lib-Dems interests to make them a coalition offer they couldn't refuse.

The AV Referendum
Tough one to predict this - if Labour take the lead in the yes campaign they may just swing it against a Tory no campaign, but Labour are from united behind AV, so at the moment I'm predicting this might a narrow No vote, which in itself I wouldn't be too bothered about, except that I think it will mean the end of any prospect of electoral reform for Westminster for at least another 10-15 years and that would be a shame and an opportunity missed.

Would the Telegraph please just stop it.

The Daily Torygraph has clearly not forgiven David Cameron for not winning an overall majority or the Lib Dems for going into coalition with them and are now using undercover reporting to trap Lib-Dem ministers into saying "sensational" things. The ministers in question have undoubtedly been a bit unwise, but these conversation were had in the context of surgeries with constituents where a certain amount of confidentiality should be in place.

Ethically, I have questions about the use of this kind of undercover reporting not to expose serious wrongdoing, but an uncomfortableness about some of the compromises involved in coalition. I means lets face it - the revelations so far have hardly been spectacular -George Osborne can get up your nose a bit - no kidding, David Cameron is not suddenly a cosy liberal - gee, who'd have thought it, Lib-Dems are uncomfortable with the compromises they had to make on tuition fees - go figure! Next week's revelations will probably include somebody saying Theresa May is a bit right-wing, isn't she? and Iain Duncan-Smith doesn't have much hair. I'm sure if they had been so inclined, they could just as easily have trapped tories saying similar things about the Lib-Dems and the compromises that they have had to make.

Leaving aside the ethical considerations, the whole thing seems to show a lack of understanding of the way coalitions work. Two parties who fought the election on different platforms aren't suddenly going to agree on everything and there will be people who they find it difficult to work with. I'm sure there are many Tories who find it hard to work with the likes of Osborne and Fox. But they are still managing to work together and govern the country together, for better or worse.

You also wonder if the Telegraph has thought through the possible consequences. The strengthening of Murdoch's empire by the removal of Cable from the case is definitely an own-goal. But putting pressure on the coalition can't be in the Tory interests at the moment. Yes, they would probably pick up seats from the Lib-Dems at the moment, but the collapse of the Lib-dem vote in Tory-Labour contests could quite easily see them lose more - Labour currently lead in most polls. So a new election now would likely produce either another hung parliament or a Labour majority.

So, all in all, its all a bit stupid on every possible level. So just stop it now and get back to do something like proper journalism.

Some belated thoughts on Tuition Fees

I haven't really had time to get down my thoughts on this issue over the last few weeks, so thought I'd take this opportunity of a break over the festive season to offer some musings. Firstly I must say that I still believe that a university education should be provided free for all students. Whilst, its been the Lib-Dems who have been in the firing line for their u-turn, we shouldn't forget that none of the parties have managed to maintain a consistent line:

Party Inconsistency?
The 2005 Conservative manifesto (written by one D. Cameron) promised to abolish fees and now they are raising them. As for Labour, its very hard to take them seriously on the issue - they promised not to introduce fees and then did, they promised not to introduce top-up fees and then did. They commissioned the report that recommended that fees should not only be tripled but completely uncapped and there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't implement those recommendations. Whilst in office they completely dismissed the idea of a graduate tax (the NUS favoured option) but are now supporting it in a cynical ploy to make political hay out of the issue. Their opportunism on this issue is far more cynical than anything the Lib-Dems have done.

Meanwhile in Scotland (where we have free tuition), the SNP are coming up with all sorts of unworkable solutions in order to delay their own u-turn on the issue until after the elections next May.

The only parties who are maintaining a consistent anti-fees line on the issue are the Greens and UKIP (now there's an unlikely alliance).

As for the Lib-Dems. They officially remain committed to abolishing fees and I think would genuinely like to see this happen. We will never know whether they could have negotiated greater concessions on the area in the coaltion agreement, but in coalition you do need to compromise on certain issues and they knew before the election that they wouldn't get anywhere on the issue with either Tories or Labour in a coalition and would have to put it onto the back-burner. The question then arises, knowing this, whether they should have signed the NUS pledge? Probably not, but then how would it have looked if they tried to say we believe in abolishing fees, but won't pledge not to increase them - its certainly a more honest position, but one that would not stand up in an election campaign in our current soundbite political culture, which has no room for nuance or complexity.

The Details

And in that culture, what we get in the media is that tuition fees are to triple for everybody. Which isn't the case. Firstly, in order to triple, rather than double fees, universities will have to do quite a lot to increase access to university for students from more deprived backgrounds.

Secondly, under the current proposals, the 25% of graduates with the lowest incomes after completing their courses (there's nothing to pay up front) will actually pay less than they do currently. Added to that, it is calculated that around 50% will never pay back the full amount in the 30 year timespan. So far from all students three times as much as currently, much fewer than half will actually pay that, and only when they are earning enough to be able to afford it. Somebody who averages £30,000 pa for the thirty years after graduation will end up paying just £2000 more in total, which works out at £67 per year more.

Taking all this, I think that is what is being suggested is probably more fair than what is currently in place. In fact in practice it doesn't work out all that different from the graduate tax the NUS advocates, except that theoretically you could have a graduate tax and still maintain you're sticking to the principle of free university education. Personally, I think that's a bit of a fudge and would prefer no fees and higher education funded by the use of the taxes that already exist, but I'm not sure if I would prioritise it over funding on healthcare or schools, for example.

Woolas vs Watkins the verdict.

I must admit to be surprised at the verdict handed down yesterday in the appeal of the Oldham East and Saddleworth General Election result. Along with a lot of people, I had assumed that Phil Woolas would get a slap on the wrist and sent back to the Commons being told not to be a naughty boy again. However, it comes as a pleasant surprise to see the judges decide to stand up for some level of standards in campaigning and I wholeheartedly welcome the decision.

Whilst standards in campaigning generally have been pretty low and all parties have been guilty of some pretty nasty leaflets and campaigns in recent years, Mr Woolas' campaign was particularly distasteful. For the immigration minister to be so blatantly playing the race card in an area which has, in the not too distant past, had race riots is just unacceptable and parliament will be a better place without him. His statement after the verdict that parliamentary candidates need to be open to question from their opponents and voices should not be gagged, etc... is absolutely irrelevant - there is a huge difference between candidates being open to fair and honest questioning and them being subject to unsubstantiated libel posted to voters.

Which leaves the parties to try and deal with the fallout. Hopefully this verdict will be a warning shot across the bows of all parties to clean up their act. IT will also inevitably call into question the judgement of Ed Milliband as the new Labour leader, who appointed mr Woolas to a front bench position whilst he was under investigation for his campaign. Although the Labour party has quickly moved to expel Mr Woolas, some damage will already have been done.

And then we will have the by-election (probably early-ish next year). It will be an interesting election. In theory the three main parties could finish in any order, having finished fairly close together in May. Under different circumstances, I’d say the Lib-dems were out of it given their current unpopularity, but Watkins standing as the victim of these accusations might just stand a chance. Similarly, if there is a backlash against Labour, the Tories vould come through the middle (especially if they keep the same candidate).

I would make Labour favourites, as I don’t imagine the CSR plays well in this area, but they will have a selection dilemma. Pick somebody local and they could be tarred by the previous campaign. Parachute somebody in and it might not go down too well either.

I suspect that the campagn itself will come down to a past vs present focus. The Conservatives and Lib-Dems will both want to focus on the previous Labour campaign and Labour's failures in government. Labour will choose to focus on the present and future cuts to services under the coalition.

An early prediction, Labour will hold on with an increased majority, but Mr Woolas won't be missed at Westminster.

Some thoughts on Housing Benefit.

Whilst I've not yet got my head round all the details of the Comprehensive Spending Review, I thought I'd share some thoughts on the proposed changes to Housing Benefit as this is shaping up nicely to be the first major argument within the coalition.

There are three areas in particular that seem to be causing controversy:

1) The move to reduce the maximum amounts of housing benefit payable for private sector rents. The most often quoted figure is £400 per week for a 4 bedroom house. In general, I would support the reduction of maximum levels, however, I think applying the same figure across the country despite wildly differing housing costs is a mistake. Hence the attention being paid to London and brewing spat between best chums Boris and Dave. (That sais talk of social cleansing and Kosovo by Boris and Labour politicians is offensive and should be avoided at all costs). Part of the problem here is that across the country there is a real shortage of larger social housing properties, following years of under-investment in housing by both previous goverments. Thus larger families are forced to seek homes through the private sector and pay private rents. Therefore maximum limits need to take into account market rental prices in the area (not averaged across the whole country).

2) The move to reduce Housing Benefit by 10% for those who've been on Job Seekers Allowance for more than a year. This is a move which, in my opinion, is wholly without justification. It is draconian, punitive and stigmatising and should be opposed and dropped. Especially in the current economic climate, being unemployed for a year is not a sign of not trying to find work and there are already enough stick measures in the JSA system, adding another one will produce no positive results and will add further pressure on those who already under too much.

3) Allowing Housing Associations to charge close to market rents for social housing in order to pay for more house building. The aim is right, but the measure might be self-defeating in terms of reducing the welfare bill. It will make many tennants more dependant on housing benefit and needing more money from the state in order to pay their rents, thus the welfare bill will in all likelihood increase.

A Brief Aside on Child Benefit

Again, in principle, I would support the removal of child benefit from those who need it the least, but from the way I understand it the proposals, could lead to a hugely unfair situation: a couple where both work and are paid just under the higher rate tax threshold (say 42.5K each, joint income £85k) would still be entitled to child benefit, but a family where only one works but is paid just into the higher rate tax band (joint income £45k) would no longer be able to claim child benefit (if I've understood correctly). That ain't quite fair, is it.

Our oil addiction.

Today the UK government decided to allow oil company Chevron to carry out deepwater drilling for oil in the sea west of Shetland.

This decision was made in spite of the following factors:

- yesterday the EU is planning a moratorium on all deepwater drilling for oil in light of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. (Hence, one suspects, the rusging through of this decision).

- Enquiries into the Horizon disaster are still ongoing, which means that new drilling off Shetland will be carried out with the same exacting safety standards as were in place there. The industry is as yet offering no further reassurances or safeguards. Meanwhile, the environmental cost in the Gulf can still not be measured as damage is still being done.

- If the world's existing supplies of oil and gas were used up, the world would still exceed targets set for reducing emissions and climate targets the UK (and Scottish) government claims to be committed too. Surely efforts should now be put into the development of greener technologies to help the world when fossil fuels run out, rather than looking for more oil. We need to plan for this change now.

This is also an issue where Alex Salmond finds himself in bed with the coalition. When pressed yesterday he refused to back the EU moratorium, preferring to leave the door open to deepwater drilling. This despite his recent trumpeting of Scotland becoming 100% renewable. I suspect that at the end of the day the SNP needs the oil industry too much in order to make the economic case for independance and that will stop them ever fully embracing an environmental agenda.

The Cameron Enigma.

I find myself increasingly unsure what to think of our new Prime Minister. Little he did before taking office impressed me, but the way he pulled together the coalition and some of his early actions and comments on the likes of civil liberties meant I was at least prepared to withhold judgement. And now?

Well, he seems to be a foreign policy disaster waiting to happen every time he gets on the plane. Its not just the gaffes (schoolboy errors though they may be), there often seems to be a lack of awareness of the wider picture. His comments on Pakistan might be accurate, but in complicated context of the region I'm not sure they are helpful or display any understanding of the different pressures any government of Pakistan faces. If anything I suspect that comments like that only help to strengthen the Taliban in Pakistan. His approach seems more George W Bush than anything else, and as such he'd be better off leaving Hague to run things.

On one hand, he has modernised the conservative party on social values and the environment, without a doubt. On the other hand this week he has both targetted benefit cheats (who, in context, cost the UK taxpayer really not that much - we lose more to error than fraud and probably save more in unclaimed benefits than we pay in either), whilst simultaneously recruiting a man (Philip Green) who's tax evasion through the use of tax havens probably single-handedly accounts for almost as much money lost as all the benefit fraud combined. And now I'm thinking same old tories - its ok to rob the tax-payer as long as you're rich.

Similarly we have had much touting of the return to cabinet government and genuine discussion through the coalition (which would make a genuine and welcome change from the Blair years) and then Cameron announces off-the-cuff policy ideas about housing without any consultation with his own party, yet alone his coalition partners.

My overall impression is that he is a man who doesn't really quite know what he's doing yet in the job and is letting his inexperience show at times. I'm also not totally sure whether it is him or Osborne who is the main driving force behind the scale and pace of the cuts we are facing. BUt that's a topic i'm planning on covering some time soon.

The Morning Rant

Sometimes you have to wonder. Against the current political climate, talk of widescale cuts and public sector pay freezes, Unison in Scotland this week voted against a 1.5% pay increase over 3 years (1% this year, nothing next and 0.5% the year after). I know this is below inflation and some people will genuinely struggle, but in all likelihood what they will end up with now is nothing. There will be little or no public sympathy for strikes at the moment, when everybody else has had to deal with cuts and redundancies, etc... striking for a bigger pay increase will not go down well.

I know this probably damages my left-wing credentials, but I never really claimed to be a true socialist anyway, but this is symptomatic of the problem I have with unions. In theory I think they're a great idea, but in practice they seem powerless to do anything when workers really are being exploited and are run, in general, by people who lurch to easily into an us-and-them mentality because it strengthens their own status rather than trying to work in a constructive way to resolve issues. (BA cabin crew, anybody?)

Combined with this we have Tony Benn's resistance to the coalition movement, backed by many prominent union leaders (who, by the way, line their own pockets through expenses, etc... far worse than MPs were caught doing) threatening mass protests and industrial action. I do like Tony Benn - I think he's an old school politiciam who often talks a lot of sense and will steadfastly refuse to toe any party-line, and I think resistance to the level of cuts planned by the government is to be welcomed. However, if this spills over into widespread industrial action a la 70s, it will play right into David Cameron's hands. If Labour become too closely tied to this through their archaic union links, they will be doomed at the next election and there will be a Tory landslide in regions of 1983 territory.

A final word about the cuts - I think talk of 40% cuts across all departments is a bit of a smokescreen. Its to make the real figure of 25% seem more palatable. Even then I doubt they will manage to achieve 25%, just as I doubt they will manage to eliminate the deficit in 5 years, but in aiming to do so they will at least hit Labour's target of halving it (which is probably more than Labour would have managed). Personally, I think that in reality the coalition will achieve cuts somewhere in the region of 15-20%, but even that is going to hurt a lot.

The Reform Bill

Running a bit late for thoughts on this one, but for what itc worth here are some thoughts on Nick Clegg's proposed political reforms.

Fixed Term Parliaments - the proposals here seem to have been changed both to head off backbench opposition and to undermine Labour resistance. Gone is the idea of 55% to remove the government, instead a simple majority in a no confidence vote would remove a Prime Minister (this should satisfy the rebellious nutters on the Tory backbenches). Meanwhile for the government to dissolve parliament early would take 66% of MPs. Labour would struggle to have much objection to this as this is very close to the system they set up for the Scottish Parliament.

Reducing the Number of MPs. Its impossible to say without new boundaries being suggested who this would favour the most, but its very hard to argue against equal sized constituencies, so Labour need to watch out with their accusations of gerrymandering. The current system does have an inbuilt bias towards Labour and attempts to protect this look like self-interest and could play very poorly for them. Jack Straw's comments that this is an attack on Labour are absolutely incredible and unbelievable - to accept this is to accept that voters in small urban seats deserve more say than those in large rural seats. Our system is deeply unfair in many ways, such defences of the status quo should be avoided.

Of the exceptions, Orkney and Shetland are so remote that a separate seat is warranted. The geograhical cap size also seeems reasonable as for an MP to cover a vast area would make the job unfeasible. I'm less convinced about the Western Isles exception - historically it has been joined to the mainland in single seat and I see no particular reason it can't be again. Especially if you consider that rigid sticking to the size rules will produce a situation where the Isle Of wight is split into two constituencies with half forced into a seat straddling the Solent. Curiously the main beneficiary of this exception are the SNP.

The AV referendum. This is going to produce one of the most bizarre things in British politics that I can think of. The two coalition parties will introduce a referendum bill for something in neither manifesto. The one party who did have it in their manifesto (Labour) could well oppose it in the Commons. If it does get through parliament, the two coalition partners will then fight on different sides of the campaign.

I have mixed views about AV. I don't see it as a more proportional system. It could as its critics say, produce bigger swings to the bigger parties. I would hate to see a No vote for AV mean an end to the chances of electoral reform for another generation. But could a YES vote be a stepping stone to further change, or would we be stuck with AV for the foreseeable future.

Conventional wisdom suggests that its easier for smaller parties to break through under FPTP, but in close elections their vote tends to get squeezed in FPTP (as happened to the Greens is all but two or three seats thios time around). AV would provide some protection from this and enable a build up of votes election on election, but ultimately might make it harder to win seats. So I'm still torn as to which way I would vote should there be a referendum. I also think that somebody needs to pay attention to what Mr Salmond is saying about the timing producing a clash of focus in the campaigns for the referendum and Scottish elections to the detriment of both.

On more positive news, the announcement of a review into counter-terrorism measures is to be welcomed. Whilst I remain dubious about some of the coalitions decisions, the noises being made about civil liberties are rather more encouraging.

Some Thoughts on the Budget.

So the budget is out after all the speculation. Looking at different newspaper headlines on wednesday morning was interesting - some of the more right wing papers saw Osborne as the Messiah come again, sorting out the economy by getting tough on scroungers. The less vitriolic elements of the press seemed slightly confused. Some saw the poor as being hardest hit, other the rich, whilst still other saw it as an attack on the middle classes. There has also been a lot of debate around whether its a progressive or a regressive budget - I find this whole line of debate rather off the point and unhelpful. I would say currently that all the main parties are neither really progressive or regressive, but somewhere in the middle and overwhelming pragmatic more than anything else.

There was a certain element of poltical one-upmanship to it - Labour had budgetted to halve the deficit by 2014, Osborne goes for eliminating it. He almost certainly won't manage that, but he will, if his strategies work, exceed Labour's target. Many on the left had feared the conservatives using the current financial crisis as an excuse to bring in radical changes on ideological grounds. I don't see that in this budget at the moment. It seems far more pragmatically political than ideological.

A personal view
For me, personally, the net result will be not much change financially. I gain £200 from the raised tax threshold, lose £75 in increased NI contribution (Labour's policy, but not changed here) and the difference will probably be within £50 of the extra VAT I will be paying. The public sector pay freeze, if adopted in Scotland, will affect me, but was to be expected and to have to wait to see what happens to my public sector pension. Reform of the system is certainly needed, but I will wait to see how they go about it. As I will probably have to work to 70 or 75 before I can claim it, by which time the stress might well have driven me to an early grave, I can't say its my over-riding concern.

Views on the Budget
Taxes - I would wholeheartedly support the increase in capital gains tax and the raising of the tax threshold ( two concrete things in the budget from the Lib-Dem side of the coalition). On reflection, I think the increase in VAT is also something I'd be broadly in favour of. Our economy has been too driven by (at times rampant) consumer spending which is both economically and environmentally unsustainable. Taxing spending rather than income seems to be one way to start to re-dress this and maybe it will encourage people to re-use, recycle and repair more. The freeze on council tax is less positive for me. I don't think its achieved much in Scotland except further strain already stretched local government budgets. The amount of extra money it gives people is really not that siognificant. In other words, the move is little more than a populist gimmick.

Cuts - the full impact of the cuts will not really be seen until the Spending Review in the autumn, but as far as the changes to the welfare system go, the changes in the child benefit/tax credit system go - they do seem to be cutting payments wealthier parents who don't need it whilst providing more to those who do need it. I haven't seen any hard figures for what the net result would be for a poorer lone parent, for example, but it seems fair.
My main concern with the budget is the proposed changes to housing benefit - the proposed cap levels would make it impossible for many people to stay in private housing in many areas, whilst the social housing sector is already overloaded and run down in many places following two decades of underinvestment. Further cuts in housing benefit for those on Job seekers allowance for more than 12 months seem unnecessarily punitive and built on the naive assumption that there will be jobs available (which is in itself, dependant on many other factors). There is certainly a trand of thinking amongst the Tory front benches that people should be more willing to move areas to find work, but this seems rather destructive to ideas of family and community and social cohesion. This is the one area of the budget that I have the most problem with.

Business - Again, the decisions here seem more broadly sensible to me - the bank levy could maybe have been slightly higher, but the encouragements to small businesses in certain regions are welcome.
Pensions - and again, the moves to protect pensioners seem reasonable.

Overall - a cracker of a budget?
So, overall its not as bad as it might have been. Its reasonably fair, but could have been much better. The housing issues are going to be one to watch I fear and my own feeling is that the cuts maybe go further than is needed and this might have a detrimental effect on employment, the economy and therefore ultimately hinder cutting the deficit.

The very rich will probably come out best - they always do, they've not been hit as hard as they could affiord and probably have the resources to find loopholes anyway. The very poorest will also be the ones to suffer most through cuts in benefits and services and will be the most affectec by the VAT rise. The middle I think will be squeezed, so those at the top of the poor and bottom of the middle will be brought closer to those above them by the raised tax threshold and those at the top of the middle will be brought down towards those just below them by the increase in CGT, etc... So the shape of the budget is a christmas cracker - those on either end of the scale pulling or dropping away from a squashed together middle.

What difference with AV?

In a recent online discussion somebody made the very valid point that people advocating different voting systems see elections as serving very different purposes. Those advocating a proportional system see the purpose of elections as producing a result which reflects the views of the electorate, whilst advocates of FPTP see elections as there solely to pick a winner. I'm not sure what proponents of AV see as the purpose of elections.

When I posted a few weeks back and mentioned estimates from a daily paper on the differences AV would have made in May I was challenged over how accurate these were. So over the past few weeks in spare moments, I've been having a look at things myself to come up with my own results. But first the challenges of working things out.

The problems of estimating vote re-allocations

Party-by-party some of the issues faced:

Lib-Dems - are perhaps the easiest party to figure based on the fact that there are polls among their supporters about who would they would have liked to be in coalition with. This would indicate second preferences of roughly one-third Conservative to two-thirds Labour. I would guess that these figures are roughly right, but what's less easy is how these balance out across the country. Are Lib-Dems voters in Scotland, for example, more left-leaning than those in the South-West. The MPs certainly seem to be. The other thing with Lib-Dems is that their voters are possibly the most likely to indicate second and third preferences, by nature of their political position.

Conservatives. Conservative voters are possibly (my own opinion) the least likely to express second preferences. There's also a bit of guesswork as to how many would go Lib-Dem to keep Labour out or how many would prefer just to switch to Labour. Election results would indicate that many voters do switch from one to the other and are actually very dsmissive of the third party. In Wales and Scotland the picture is even more complicated - who would unionist Tories prefer in contests between the Nationalists and Labour.

Labour. Instinctively, I feel Labour voters are more likely to switch Lib-Dem to keep the Tories out than the other way round. Of course, there are still some who might switch Tory, but I'm guessing most who are likely to do, did so at this election (Outside Scotland at least.). Many Labour voters are maybe aready tactically voting Lib-dem - under AV these votes would come back to Labour on the first vote, before switching back to Lib-Dems on second preference. (Interestingly, polling just prior to the election indicated that this time round the Tories were going to be the main beneficiaries of tactical voting - presumably either from UKIP or right leaning Lib-Dems wanting to get Labour out.)

Nationalists. Theoretically, both SNP and Plaid Cymru are Centre-Left party, making their second preferences likely to tend that way. Certainly in urban Scotland the SNP seem to be competing for votes with Labour in the poorer regions. However, in some rural areas their supporters perhaps have more in common with the Tories.

Greens. The Lib-Dems are theoretically the most Green of the big three and there did seem to be a correlation between Greens doing well and Lib-Dems doing badly. Norwich South disproved that with Green advance being almost exclusively at the expense of Labour. Their policies are more left than right, but many Green voters might otherwise be Conservative, who are probably a toucher greener under Cameron than Labour.

UKIP It appears a no-brainer that most UKIP voters would go Tory on second preference. But even here there is a counter-argument that if that was the case, in situations where Euro-sceptic Tories faced tough opposition, why haven't they already? Some argue evidence from doorsteps in South-West that many UKIP supporters would be Lib-Dem if not for policy on Europe. Other than Europe, UKIP policies are a bit of a hotch-potch of progressive and reactionary, so difficult to call.

BNP Although a far-right party, BNP voters almost exclusively come from white working class areas that would traditionally support Labour.

English Democrats _ i really don't have a clue about where they get their votes from.

The impact of AV itself. AV, as already mentioned, would see an unwinding of tactical voting in the first preference, but those votes would end up back where they started on the second preference. Similarly, I would expect to see a first preference boost for the Greens and maybe other small parties, before again those votes ended back where they started.

All of which makes it rather hard to calculate, except there are a huge number of seats where the winning candidate got over 50% or close enough to 50% with a large majority that no change would be possible. Of the other seats, I reckon that, if I've got it wrong, its more likely that less would change due to voters not expressing a second preference than that more would change.

My estimate of the results under AV:
(I've not attempted to look at Northern Ireland)

Labour - 275
Conservatives - 273
Lib-Dems - 74
SNP - 5
Plaid Cymru - 2
Greens - 1
Independant - 1

To summarise, I think the system would help Labour to hold onto a large number of (mainly Middle-England) seats that they ended up losing to the Tories by 5% or thereabouts (such as Bedford, Carlisle,Colne Valley, Hendon, Ipswich). They might also have held ARfon from Plaid and re-taken Dundee East from SNP and held the Lib_dems off in Bradford East. The Conservatives on the other hand are the big losers, the only gains I see for them might be Wells from the Lib-Dems and Walsall South from Labour, with possibly Mid-Dorset as well. The might also have failed to take Wyre Forest from the independant. For the Lib-dems, they might have held on to few seats they lost to the Tories (Falmouth, Oxford West, Camborne) as well as coming through to take the likes of Bristol NW, Watford and St albans. But they actually benefit more against Labour in urban areas, taking seats in the likes of Swansea W, Rochdale, Sheffield C, Oxford E, Oldham, Newport, Hull and Edinburgh South.

Of course, even if AV does come in for the next election, its likely to be accompanied by boundary changes, larger constituencies and who knows what impact the coalition will have on all the parties fortunes.

Looking forward to Holyrood '11

A poll in the Herald this week gives the first indication since the General Election of voting intentions for next year's Scottish elections and the news is very good for Labour. These figures on a uniform swing would give Labour around 60 seats to the SNP's 37 with the Lib-Dems on 16 and the Conservatives on 14 with 2 Greens.

For Labour there should be a reality check that they are probably receiving a boost from having no leader to attract negative coverage and from a negative reaction to a Tory government in Westminster. In fact, they are doing so well on these figures, that in most regions (except Highlands) their supporters would do more damage to the SNP by switching their regional vote to either the Lib-Dems or Greens, depending who they fancied as coalition partners. This would be the dilemma for Labour - do they try and form a new coalition with the party they probably feel snubbed their offer of a "progressive coalition" or go the minority government route pioneered by the SNP with issue by issue support from the Greens (who prefer to operate that way rather than forming a coalition).

For the SNP it shows that they face a real challenge to hold onto government against a Labour party who are now in opposition UK-wide. Unhappiness with the UK-government will no longer play in their favour, nor will "Time for a change" slogans. They might be able to make some political capital out of opposition to Coalition cuts, but even there, the delay in application of those cuts might play against them and this is a card that Labour can now play as well.

For the Tories a drop in their regional vote from where they get most of their seats could spell bad news and see them drop into 4th place behind the Lib-Dems again. For the Greens they seem to be treading water, but a rise of 1 or 2 percent could see them regain 3 or 4 regional seats that they lost last time. Crucially for them, if Labour do perform this strongly this could be enough to see them holding the balance of power and able to exert some considerable influence.

For the Lib-Dems their constituency vote is down, but the regional vote is slightly up which means they will lose seats to Labour, but win them back from the list. The interesting thing for them would be if labour did approach them for a coalition and we were faced with a Tory-Lib-Dem coalition in Westminster battling at Labour-Lib-Dem coalition at Holyrood. Interesting times indeed.