danieldwilliam | Entries tagged with a bit of politics

A few political musing, or perhaps economic ones.

1) Those jobs in Swindon at the Honda plant are not coming back even if we change our mind about Brexit and seek to rejoin. Once the factory shuts they are toast. Particularly if the other car plants inthe area also close. The skills base and the supply chain will be taken up by some other firms in some other parts of the world. My rule of thumb for headline job numbers is that for every 1 job in a big factory there is 1 job in the supply chain, either upstream or downstream and for every 1 job in the total supply chain there are 1-2 jobs created selling stuff to the people working in the main supply chain. So 3,500 jobs at the plant probably means another 3,500 jobs in the factory's wider supply chain and between 3,500 and 7,000 jobs in the wider economy. As a rough order of magnitude for sizing purposes.

You want them back - ten or twenty year process, 25% chance of any noticable success.

2) The last time a small group of centre-left Labour MP's left the party it lead to a three term radical Labour Government. The three term radical Tory government in between was probably a price worth paying.*

3) If 7 of your MP's, including a former Shadow Cabinet Minister and contender for the leaderhip leave your party citing anti-semitism as a reason and you still don't think you have a problem with anti-semitism then, whomever else has whatever other problem you have a problem with anti-semitism *and* a problem understanding how politics works. I'm exasperated but not surprised that the current Labour leadership haven't worked out that the Labour Party is more prone to splitting than anyone else and that even if your supporters are wrong about you being racist hypocrits you probably need to address their legitimate concerns.** Had I still been a member of the Labour Party I would have resigned yesterday after seeing the behaviour of the Young Labour twitter account.

4) Former Labour MP's currently sitting as independents are now the fourth largest party in the House of Commons, after the Tories, the Labour Party, the SNP and before the Lib Dems and the DUP.

5) Labour MP's quitting the whip and not backing Corbyn as Prime Minister is exactly how I've thought Corbyn doesn't end up as Prime Minister. In the event of a snap election the Labour Party (as well as the Lib Dems and Greens) are going to have think carefully about running candidates against the 7 resigners. In the event that Corbyn does end up as Prime Minister *** we may be looking at the first time in British history that every new Prime Minister in a century is a genuine candidate for worst Prime Minister Ever.****

6) I don't think the resignation from the Labour Party of Umunna et al effects how the Brexit process plays out in any clear way. They were always going to vote against the whip if needed. It might encourage other pro-Remain pro-People's Vote MP's to vote for a second referendum or revocation of Article 50, either inside or outside of the Party. It might persuade Tory Remainers that Corbyn will never become Prime Minister even if they No Confidence May. Or it might not. I still think we are in the early stages of a process of a preference vote between 1) No Deal 2) May's Deal, 3) BINO / Norwayesque 4) Significant Delay 5) Remain with a side order of May attempting to delay that process so as to narrow the field without causing more of a public fight in her own party.

7) I still think betting against the Tory Party splitting is the sensible bet.

*that's a joke.

** also a joke, sort of.

*** Not a joke, but certainly risible.

**** Definately a joke, it's definately David Cameron. Even if Corbyn decided on a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament through a process of nuking our own nuclear submarine base, it's still David Cameron. And when you think that David Cameron is the least worst current politician who went to Eton, well, have a think about that.

(The other two political muses are stuck on an over crowded Borders train.)

I think the next steps for Brexit are

May goes off to Brussels with her mandate in her hand. (Must change my Facebook profile picture back to Neville Chamberlain.)

Brussels don't negotiate. Version A) they meet for a few weeks, change a few comma, and increase the divorce bill by a few billion. Everyone agrees they should do it again in March. Option B. Brussels refuses to re-open negotiaions, May is just told, "no, take it or leave it." The EU decides that it will put Irish solidarity and future cohesion ahead of Tory Party unity. May is publically humiliated in a way that sends a clear message to the Five Star movement.

May comes back to Parliament with a deal that is essentially unchanged.

It fails to pass again.

There is a Vote of No Confidence Again.

Then I don't know.

Perhaps the Government falls. Perhaps not. Perhaps Keir Starmer forms a government of national unity. Perhaps we end up with martial law. Perhaps there is a People's Vote. I've no idea.

And nor do you.

And nor do they.

I take an interest in USian politics because, well frankly, because it makes our own look sane, sincere and well-managed.
And the big thing that political professionals are looking at is...

.... House of Representative Re-apportionment following the 2020 US Census.

( Yeah, baby, Census! )

Some snippets of data, perhaps even knowledge, gained by putting various bits of information from this BBC article reporting on the income and membership of the Tory and Labour Parties.

Total Income for Labour £55.7m
Total Income for the Tories £45.9m

Labour out fund-raise the Tories by nearly £10m in 2017.

Labour Membership 564,443. Tory Membership 124,000. Labour have 440 thousand more members than the Tories. Or, another way of looking at it are 4 times the size. Brandon Lewis, the Tory Party official says there about 300,000 affiliate Tories and such like through things Conservative Clubs.

Annual standard membership costs a Labour member £50, and a Tory member £25. With membership fee income of £16.1m and £0.835 respectively the membership fee income yield per member is Labour £28.52 and Tory £6.73. Membership discounts therefore 43% for Labour, 73% for the Tories.
Donation Income for Labour £18.2m, Tories £34.0m. Donation per member £32.24 Labour, £273.92 Tory.

Non membership income, Labour £24.4m, Tories £11.1m.

This is considerably to the advantage of the Labour Party.

They have more income. Their members give more in membership fee i.e. direct debit type committed giving, which are less likely to be forgotten. The Tories seem to be discounting there membership more. The Labour Party has more income from non-members.

The conventional wisdom is that the Tories have more money and can therefore spend more on things like general election preparations. This doesn't seem to be true at the moment.

How does your bus driver get to work if the permits officer at the petrol refinery is on strike because the coffee machine has run out of limescale remover and won't boot up?

I have been thinking a little bit about supply chains and how they might be affected by a botched Brexit. And I don't know what will happen with them but I thought it might be useful to lay out why I don't know and what this implies for the ability of the government to know. Or to plan or to act.

Some of the important principles that I think apply to supply chains are below.

Supply chains are expensive. Firstly they require an investment in fixed assets. Warehouses, lorries, IT systems. This requires an investment of capital. Secondly, things that are in a supply chain are working capital. Capital costs money. If you have a Weighted Average Cost of Capital of 15% then each additional £1million is costing you £150,000. A year. Each warehouse or each additional day of stock you need costs you money.

So much money do supply chains cost that one could plausibly describe the post-war economic history of the West as the organised attempt to optimise supply chains for the lowest cost.

Supply chains are also dependent on external socially provided capital. Public roads, the electricty grids that carry the power to the cranes, railways. This is also expensive and big and slow to provide and subject to political processes, like planning permission.

Supply chains are the result of an evolutionary process. A process of exploration. Three things follow from this.

Firstly, there is a constant search for better supply chains. Better in the Darwinian sense of being best fitted for surviving in to the next time period. Supply chains are optimised over short periods. They have been developed incrementally. Their current position is dependent on the path they have taken to get there. The resiliance of your supply chain to a once in a 50 year event is not going to keep you in business if you can not pay this quarter's dividend or settle your rent bill. They are constantly being optimised in real time.

Secondly, they are being optimised by individual economic actors mostly against a background of the current state of optimisation by everyone else. This is being done in conditions of limited knowledge and bounded rationality. Those economic actors are acting in their own perceived best interests. They are acting in a state of a mix of co-operation and competition with other economic actors. The "Supply Chain" is not being optimised. Each individual's position is being optimised, within the supply chain.

Thirdly, a large part of the background against which supply chains have evolved is the stability of other market and political structures. People will supply goods on credit because courts exist. People will not insist on being paid in cash on delivery because internet banking exists. People will not come in person to your factory to buy goods because ordering by post or email exists. People will invest in capital goods because they have a reasonable expectation that things tomorrow will be similar to things today and that they can trust other economic actors to continue to behave like they did yesterday.

As a consequence of the above supply chains have become very, very lean with as little spare capacity as possible in them, by design. As a consequence of the above supply are vulnerable to the positions taken by every individual in them. As a consequence of the above there is no holistic system with a writen down plan of "The Supply Chain". The Supply Chain is lean to the point of brittle, dependent on many of the organisations in it and unknown.

Supply chains for many organisations are also dependent on the transport system. The transport system is a chaotic system. Chaotic in the sense that it is subject to sensitive dependence on initial conditions and its behaviour is non-linear. How the transport systems will respond to an external shock or to signficant increases in volume is anyone's guess and perhaps unmodellable.

Supply chains and transport networks are often run, or managed, by large, complex organisations. I do not subscribe to the Heroic models of Leadership or Entrepreneurship. A key challenge in large organisations is managing the flow of information. The people leading large organisations don't fully understand how their organisation operates or what it is currently doing. Large organisations are also political organisations and subject to the goals of any individual or group in the organisation who has power or influence. Parts of an organisation may well be optimised for the benefit of the people in that part of the organisation and not for the organisation as a whole, let alone optimised for the benefit of the supply chain - and optimised in the context of a steady environment.

The Supply Chain is being managed by organisations which are uncertain of their own position and velocity.

Supply chains are also mostly still managed by people. There are people at both ends. People are subject to all sorts of planning defects up to and including blind panic.

On the other hand, supply chains have a degree of automation in them, either formal automation or the automation of habit and custom and practice. That automation is designed to optimise parts of the supply chain for low cost against a stable background.

Supply chains are also resting on a legal, regulatory and financial framework. Do you have cash? Do you have credit? Is your cash the right currency? Will your insurance cover this action? Is this action legal? Do you have the legal authority to take this action? How do I know that this is what it says it is? How does this framework operate in a situation of chaotic stress and frantic action?

My conclusion is that no one knows, no one can know, with much certainty, how "The Supply Chain" is currently set up and what are the vital parts of it. There is no model that will allow you to work out what the end result of something changing will be. There can be no comprehensive plan for mitigating the impact of Brexit on "The Supply Chain" because there is not such a thing as "The Supply Chain." No one fully understands it and no one fully controls it.

This is a two part question. Do we understand our own supply chains and what is about to happen to them? What is the impact on supply chains of a botched Brexit?

We don't know what chain of events a botched Brexit will trigger. We don't know what secondary events will flow from the initial disturbance.

It is straight-foward enough to think about what happens if there are delays moving lorries through ports. Traffic jams, delays, perished food, lorries not where they ought to be the next day. Drivers not where they ought to be the day after.

What happens if Gresham's Law applies to lorries and anyone with a lorry wants it to be inside the EU and not stuck in a traffic jam in Kent and so refuses to send their lorry to the UK after the 20th of March?

What happens if the impact of Brexit is more left-field? A currency crisis caused by a bot trader responding automatically to a panicked sell off of the pound. The currency crisis causes a margin call for currency traders and a liquidity crisis and suddenly no one in the UK can buy dollars any more. Which is a problem if you need dollars to pay for oil to turn in to petrol. Or if the impact of a petrol shortage is that teachers can't get to work and lots of primary schools are shut and parents also can't go to work. And some of those parents work in the National Grid control centre. Or during the black out caused by a grid failure someone steals the lorry which has the shipment of consumables for the tachographs that go in to every lorry in the UK and now no one is sure if they can legally drive their lorry any more.

Or a group of the kids whose school is shut and are left unsupervised decide to play chicken with a passenger express train on the East Coast Mainline and lose and the railway is closed for a day.

Or anyone of a dozen plausible complications which might be easily dealt with if everything else were working well.

So, I think it's very difficult to see how our supply chains will work in the event of a disorderly Brexit.

I was appalled by the opening dance routine of last Sunday's Strictly Come Dancing results show. I don't think light entertainment programmes are the right place for acts of remembrance and I thought the tone and quality of the performace was very questionable.

So I complained to the BBC. The text of my complaint is below.

( Text of my Complaint )

Current Mood: angry
Current Location: BBC Central
Current Music: 500 Miles by the Proclaimers

LIke a Janus faced Casandra the Tartan Shortbread Institute of Scotology has been retained by John McTernan ~~to run the Labour Party's election campaign~~ peer in to both the future and the past and divine 25 True Facts about the second May government

In an echo of the '45 Atlee government May's Queen's Speech will be accompanied by a rousing rendition of the traditional Tory favourite, The Sash My Father Wore.
Angus Robertson and Alex Salmond will be elevated to the Lords like a modern day Statler and Waldorf. They will strike down on Teressa May with great vengance and furious anger. The Daily Mail will declare them to be "enemies of the people".
Every Tory MP over the age of 65 will be wrapped in cotton wool and kept in a quiet dark room away from rich food, sharp objects and difficult questions. Tory MP's under 35 will keep away from their cocaine dealer and dominatrices. That will hurt them a lot more than it hurts me.
Gina Miller will win the first by-election of the new Parliament, defeating Zac Goldsmith (Indepedent), by 45 votes and one runway. Claude Junker will die of laughter.
Farage! Nigel Farage! will re-enter British politics in England's greatest hour of need, a cross between Churchill and Edward the VIII. Pint in one hand, cigarette in the other and clutching the hijab he braverly wrestled from a terrified resident of Bradford in order to protect her from her own false consciousness and internalisation of the patriarchy he will illuminate British politics like the Sun King. He will never, ever, ever become an MP. Ever. Baldrick has more chance. A sex tape of him and Katie Hopkins shagging under the coats at the Briebart Christmas party at Nakatomi Towers will be released under the title Die Hard with a Brexit. Is that what you want? Because that's what will happen.
Scotland will beat England at football after England score an own goal from the penalty spot.
Jeremy Corbyn will set the Tory Party some really difficult geography homework. Questions will include - Where is the Suez Canal? How many counties are there in Ulster? Where can you park an illegally funded battle bus in Thannet South? What does the Scotish Navy keep at Holy Loch? How many runways does Heathrow Airport have?
Arlene Foster will declare herself to be a bloody difficult woman. The Daily Mail will declare her to be "an enemy of the people."
An ill-judged attempt at cross-bench reconcilliation will see Sir Mhari Black knighted but later arrested for headbutting William Rees-Mogg after he propositions her in Classical Greek. It will be the most shared video on the BBC website of 2017.
A wall or possibly a tunnel will be built along the Irish border - Sein Fein will pay.
Tony Blair will challenge Farage! Nigel Farage! for the leadership of the UKIPs. The much coveted leadership position of Britain's favourite far-right home for nutjobs and racists will eventually be held in tandem by Natalie Bennet and George Galloway under some sort of job share arrangement. They will be declared "enemies of the people" on alternate days.
Smarting from their shock winning of most seats in Scotland and humiliated by their second best result ever Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP will turn away from talk of #indyref2 and get back to the day job, which in their case is preparing Scotland for a second independence referendum.
Philip May will consider redecorating Number Ten but unable to get Corbyn to agree on a colour scheme he will abandon the project on the grounds of there being no point, after all they're moving soon.
Several Tories will suffer self-inflicted injuries stabbing themselves in the back whilst vying for an opportunity to betray Boris Johnson. Boris Johson will be arrested by MI5 after breaking in to Number 10 to measure for curtains.
After not U-turning on a snap election and not U-turning on the dementia tax and not U-turning on National Insurance May's strong and stable government will dilligently pursue her "secret" plan for a Die Hard Brexit. Oh yes they will. They will. Stop sniggering. It's not like she campaigned for Remain before the referendum is it? She's never going to betray Johnson, Davis and Doctor Liam Fox or the trust of the English people. Not! Going! To! Happen!
The repair bill for the Palace of Westminister and Buckingham Palace will be so large that both buildings will abandoned. The Queen will move in to David Cameron's duck house. Parliament will relocate to Jeremy Corbyn's shed so long as Ken Livingston can rehome his newts.
Teressa May will enact the Conservative Party manifesto of re-nationalising the railways, ending tuition fees, bringing in a £10 minimum wage and No Surrender.
Pete Wishart will go missing at sea whilst sailing a ship called Dignity the wrong way through the Minch. Ruth Davidson will be arrested riding a riding a bison called Cruelty the wrong way down the Euro-tunnel. She will be sobered up, wiped down and placed in the professional care of Patrick Harvie. Harvie wil relish his new day job as a celebrity social worker. The bison will be declared "an enemy of the people".
Gangs of university students will intimidate Tory MP's by hanging round outside their offices defiantly showing them their postal vote applications and copies of Pepper vs Hart.
In the spirit of One Nation Toryism for which she is justly famed Teressa May will commision a super-group of the remaining Smith, Billy Bragg, the Pogues, Kate Bush and Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber to produce a new arrangement of the Famine Song to become Britain's new national anthem. The Daily Mail will declare them "enemies of the We Are The People."
47 Daily Mail journalists will be killed in what, at first, is thought to be a jihadi attack on the newspaper's head office. Police will later confirm that Paul Dacre exploded upon discovering that the UK isn't going to leave the Single Market after all.
May's Brexit plan will leak more often than the Labour Party manifesto and David Davis' pants. Mostly it will be leaked by the European negotiators reporting back to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament as they are legally obliged to. No one in Europe will think this is strange.
A new centrist party will form from a merger of the Lib Dems, The Yorkshire Party and the Provisional wing of the BBC and claim the fertile centre ground of British politics. In the third general election of 2017 a combination of viral targetted Facebook attack adds and a Mary Berry cookery book fundraiser will see them break through and win Clacton from the SNP.
The issue of same-sex marrages in Northern Ireland wil be settled by an arm wrestling match between Nigel Dodds and Ruth Davidson's bison. As a result of the contest LGBT humans of all genders and none will be welcome in a progressive Northern Ireland free of the reactionary and bigoted politics of the past.
Ken Clarke will finally succeed Teressa May as Prime Minister, leading a government of national unity. He will call a snap election in January 2018. And lose.

Current Mood: giggly
Current Location: Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Current Music: The Sash My Father Wore

Some quick throughts on Trumps first 100 days proposals. He should strike fast before House Republicans remember that they hate him.

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501451368/here-is-what-donald-trump-wants-to-do-in-his-first-100-days

( Read more... )

Current Mood: dejected
Current Location: Ohio
Current Music: Tomorrow Belongs to Me by Kander and Ebb

For those of you watching in black and white the pound is now at its lowest level against the US dollar in 31 years, trading this morning at $1.2757.

That's below the value it touched just after the EU Referendum result.

This isn't a result of Brexit. This is a result of us *talking* about Brexit. My guess, for what its worth, is that if we ever get round to actual Brexit we'll see the pound worth more or less one US dollar. Its high over the last twelve months was 1.55. Dollar parity would see the pound worth 2/3rds of its value a year ago.

You'll start to see this in inflation figures over the next few months. The next Bank of England quarterly inflation report is due on the 3rd of November and this will be the first one where the whole period is after the referendum and the fall in value of the pound. Anything that is imported, anything where large parts of the components are traded in dollars and anything involving lots of oil will get more expensive.

The FTSE 100 share index, made up of large multi-national firms, so not really a great measure of the UK economy, rises to a near record 7,000 points. It is traded in pounds. In dollars, it's down 2% this year. Basically people with dollars are taking their valuable dollars and buying cheap pounds to buy shares in FTSE 100 companies at a bargain. Apply the same logic to other UK stock indices.

If you are able to negotiate yourself a payrise now might be the time to start. Or if you're a pensioner with a triple locked pension and investments in the FTSE 100 sit back and crack open a bottle of English sparkling wine.

Current Mood: alarmed
Current Location: Cable Street
Current Music: Hey, Brother, Can You Spare A Dime, by Bing Crosby

Where does Brexit leave voting reform?

Very difficult to tell. It will depend on the how the cascade of crises we're about to have tumble. That is probably true for many things.

My view is obviously coloured by the fact that I think our poor voting system is one of the contributory factors in the Brexit vote. If you think that I'm an out of touch Guardian reading, metropolitian liberal elite wanker who is part of the problem then my diagnosis is unlikely to be persuasive.

There are I think a number of binary positions to consider that build up to some scenarios.

Brexit either will or will not happen before 2020.

The government either will or will not collapse.

The Labour Party will recognise that it has lost the firm support of many traditional voters or it will not.

Scotland either will or won't become independent.

The Party system either will or won't break down.

As a reaction to the shock to the Party System can progressives or conservaties gather round a vote winning leader or a vote winning platform or not? Are social liberals and economic liberals allied or opposed? Do they converge or diverge?

Amongst that there are some scenarios that favour voting reform or constitutional reform more widely.

For example, the government collapses before Christmas, without Brexit, the Labour Party runs on a manifesto of putting power back in the hands of people with a constitutional convention, electoral reform and regional devolution.

Or the less favourably, the Tories don't implode and quietly don't invoke Article 50, we get to 2020 and the North of England votes for UKIP, Scotland votes for independence, and the Tories continue to run the country just has they have been for the decade before.

I think we need electoral reform but it is difficult to persuade people that it the solution to the problems that they have in their lives because they don't see the connection between voting mechanics and how power is operated and how power is used to apply resources to solve problems.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: The People's Democratic European Republic of South Scandinavia
Current Music: Land of My Fathers

A serious thought about the EU Referendum and the possibility of a second Scottish Independence referendum.

I was, and am, in favour of Scottish Independence within the EU.

I was, and am, in favour of the UK remaining part of the EU.

I wish I could have both. If we can not have both I think we should pick the EU over the UK.

Ideally, for me, Scotland would become independent from the UK whilst both were in the EU. There would be a natural and pre-existing trading arrangement. We (Scotland) would have to ride out a few years adjusting to running our own country, getting a workable currency and setting our tax rates right. It would be difficult in the short term but I think, on balance, probably, better economically and politically in the medium term. This is a guess not a promise and I might be wrong. Other people thought so and I respect their thought processes and their right to their own values and risk preferences.

But we don't live in an ideal world. There appears to be no sweet spot where we can have easy trading relationships with both the rest of the UK and the other 27 members of the EU. The next few years are going to be economically challenging in exactly the same way as Scottish Indepdence was always going to be. Avoiding the sunk cost fallacy we have to make the best of the situation we are in today, not the best of the situation we thought we were in a week ago. We have to go forward from where we are. Where we are, today, is in flux, with both peril and opportunity on all sides.

And so, it might now be the case that Scottish Indepedence as part of the EU is the best option for my country even if it wasn't when the rest of the UK was an EU member state.

If that is the case I think we should do it quickly. To quote the first and greatest British playwright

"Thereis a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of theirlife is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures."

and

"If it were donewhen 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly"

The position of the SNP before the EU referendum as I saw it was a) to reserve the right to hold a second referendum to Scottish people, and b) to actually wait until there was a pent up demand for independence. Fair and resonable under the circumstances in my view. But slow, so slow, so flat footed.

I think those circumstances have changed. We have a very strong vote for Remain in Scotland. Is that a proxy for a vote for Independence? Maybes Aye, Maybes Nay. There's only one way to find out soon. And find out soon we must. There is an opportunity for Scotland to profit from England's error. If we move quickly, quickly to establish a firm invitation to remain in the EU, quickly to hold and win an independence referendum and then quickly to set our trade and taxation policy so as to predate on England's uncertain future by encouraging international businesses currently located in England who want an Anglophone location in the EU to relocate to Scotland rather than Ireland. Which if they are going to do, they will do sooner rather than later.

Are the people of Scotland up for this? Only one way to find out. If we wait until we are certain the opportunity to walk away from the implosion of the UK with at least our own country and economy and people intact will be gone.

So I think Sturgon should get on a plane and fly round every European capital and ask them to jointly and severally invite Scotland to stay in the EU. If successful she should announce a referendum to be held before Christmas. If that is for independence then we negotiate SExit alongside Brexit and stay in the EU.

If unsuccessful we are not any worse off. If we wait to see how damaging Brexit will be and how that actually affects public opinion the damage to us will be done and the opportunity to ameliorate that damage with some prudent, sharp business will be lost.

To be clear - I am absolutely advocating that we (Scotland) conspire to stab our closest ally and dearest friend in the back. Et tu Scotus. We should not stand with them whilst they try to work out how to be a non-European nation. We should take advantage of their distress to prosper ourselves. What choice have they left us? What choice have we left ourselves.

I vote for #IndyRef2 within six months.

Current Mood: conflicted
Current Location: He's Behind You
Current Music: Mac the Knife, by Bobby Darin

This isn't a prediction but more of a prior or a baseline.

As you sow, so shall ye reap and sometimes you are not the harvester but the harvest.

If Scotland is to become independent and pick up any benefit of businesses wanting to keep an Angolphone office inside the EU it will need to become independent within the EU pretty fast. I'd be disappointed if Sturgeon wasn't on a plane to Brussels and Bonn today.

Indyref Part 2 within a year. Yes wins by a narrow margin. Scotland opens popcorn but realises it actually has some work to do so sells the popcorn. Watch the predatory corporation tax rate and the subtlely lax banking regulation. (Let's hope we have the sense to keep some of the tax revenue back for the next crash.)

Chaos in the Tory Party. They either need to back off the central plank of their economic policy of reducing the deficit through spending cuts or they need to magically make the economy not be affected by the referendum result or admit that their economic credibilty is worth about as much as the pound. So, the emergency budget will be devisive - for them - and brutal for the working classes in the North of England and the Midlands. I'd expect May to emerge at Tory leader and the next PM.

Chaos in the Labour Party. Corbyn is utterly pish. Essentially backed Leave. I thought he'd manage to communicate with people and shift the Overton Window a bit but it feels like he's sitting at his desk writing strident blog posts, filing his paperclips and gazing at the pin-ups in the Morning Star. However, the Labour right hasn't re-organised in to a coherent post-Blarite grouping and, to be honest, doesn't have much in the way of quality to offer either.

I think we probably avoid a snap general election. Jeez, that would be messy.

Plan A - we (they) end up having a second EU referendum post exit negotiations on the question "Do you want to stay in the EU or take the actual deal on offer?"

Plan B - Britain (aka England) gets left to dangle for a year or more and ends up in the European Economic Area but on pretty strict terms, probably including Schengen. (I personally won't be sorry about this. I like the EU, I like free movement, I like every closer union and being forced to join the EEA will be a much needed punch to the nuts of post-imperialist little Englanders. Also, I'll be living in a post-independence Scotland.)

Those are not our Plans A and B but the German's Plans A & B.

Ten or twenty years after England joins the EEA it votes to rejoin the EU finally shorn of its illustions that the rest of the world owes it any favours.

The working class of the North of England and the Midlands continues to be slowly evicerated by the Conservative Party. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a hand-made Italian brogue stamping on a face, forever.

But not I think in my country.

Current Mood: That look in Charlie Brown's face
Current Location: The Mid-Atlantic, drifting
Current Music: Ode to Joy, by the Red Army Choir

Schools in south Edinburgh are pretty much full. Some combination of immigration, a spike in birth rates and the general good quality of the schools attracting people to the area means that most of the primary schools and all of the secondary schools are expected to be over-subscribed over the next ten years.

Various people are trying to find various ways of addressing - basically building a new primary school and a new annexe for the secondary schools.

One of the factors that is driving increased rolls is that my local secondary school picks up the Gaelic Medium teaching for Edinburgh and the Lothians.

I've been very sceptical about the promotion of the Gaelic language in southern and eastern Scotland for years now. Now the implications of the policy are begining to impact my own children's education I'm now more personally sceptical.

Current Mood: disgruntled
Current Location: South Central Edinburgh
Current Music: Donald, Where's Your Trousers? by Andy Stewart

My next stop takes me north to the family home in the Northern Isles for a look at the Highlands and Islands. A land of wild winds, huge constituencies and Liberal Democrat voters. Turn out in the Highlands and Island was 58.9%. Glasgow managed 47.4%. Some people in the Highlands and Islands have to swim to the polling station and they managed a clear 11% better turn out than the Glaswegians who only have to stumble out of the pub in the morning to vote. And, yes, I am going to continue to mock Glasgow for its appalling turnout. When fewer than one in two of you bother to vote you deserve all the mockery you get.

Party	Regional Votes	% of Vote	Constituency Vote	Constituency %	Constituency Seats	Evenutal List Seats	Total Seats	% of Seats

SNP	81,600	40%	91,088	44%	6	1	7	47%
Conservative	44,693	22%	39,493	19%		3	3	20%
Labour	22,894	11%	24,246	12%		2	2	13%
Scottish Green	14,781	7%	0	0%	0	1	1	7%
Liberal Democrats	27,223	13%	47,465	23%	2	-	2	13%
UKIP	5,344	3%	0	0%		-	0	0%
Women's Equality	0	0.00%	0	0%		-	0	0%
RISE	889	0%	0	0%		-	0	0%
Solidarity	793	0%	0	0%		-	0	0%
Independent	3,689	2%	1,253	1%		-	0	0%
Libertarian	0	0%	0	0%		-	0	0%
A Better Britain – Unionist Party	0	0%	0	0%		-	0	0%
Animal Welfare	0	0%	0	0%		-	0	0%
Scottish Christian	3,407	2%	1,162	1%		-	0	0%

	205,313	100%	204,707	100%	8	7	15	100%

Looking first at the real votes on the regional list. The order of election was Conservative, Labour, Conservative, Conservative, Green, SNP, Labour.

This is another region where the SNP pick up a disproportionate total of the overall seats, 40% of the vote garnering 47% of the seats.

That Green seat is now held by John Finnie, one of two former SNP MSP's to resign from the SNP over NATO membership and sit as quasi-independents in Holyrood. The other was Jean Urquhart who was the lead candidate for RISE in the Highlands and Islands. Both MSP's, after resigning from the SNP committed themselves to honouring the SNP's manifesto as they had been elected on the regional list in 2011 on that manifesto. A pair of honourable individuals.

The Green's seat is a 5th round pick. So provided that the other honourable duo of McArthur and Scott hold the seats of Orkney and Shetland it should be a good prospect for the Greens to retain the seat.

The last seat to be allocated was for Labour and the margin looks pretty narrow. Some 800 or so more Conservative voters would have cost Labour the seat.

There is the usual leakage of SNP votes in constituencies to the regional vote but in the Highlands and Islands the big swing between region and list is away from the Liberal Democrats who mislay some 20,000 votes between one ballot box and the other. The Conservatives increase their share of the vote in the PR list, the Greens didn't stand in any constituencies and the small parties pick up 14 thousand votes between them. No Better Britain - Unionism party or Animal Welfare Party in the Highlands or, sadly, the Women's Equality Party but the Scottish Christian Party pick 3 thousand votes on the list putting them just behind an independent candidate. Rise and Solidarity barely trouble the scorers.

Looking at counter-factuals. The Conservatives could have won a list seat at the expense of the Labour Party. Perhaps they should have bused in some volunteers. Only one seat was close enough to have perhaps impacted the list race. Moray saw the SNP win by 2,875 votes over the Consertatives. The SNP would have picked up a compensating seat on the regional list. Na h-Eileanan an Iar looks closer than it is. It's a small seat. The winning margin for the SNP over Labour was 3,496 - which would make this marginal in the big city regions - but turn out in the Western Isles was over 60% and this was the only seat in which the SNP polled more than 50% of the vote. The SNP did finish first or second in every seat.

Final thoughts on the constituency votes. Both Liam McArthur and Tavish Scott hold their seats of Orkney and Shetland with comfortable, nay epic, majorities. Mcarthur and Scott gathered 67% of the constituency vote. The Nothern Isles seem to have put the Carmichael business behind them and sent two Lib Dems to Holyrood. I'm personally pleased about this.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Scapa Flow
Current Music: Fingal's Cave, by Mendelssohn

Along the M8 to Glasgow where nearly as many people voted as didn't bother. Turn out was 47.4% which compares pretty badly with the 57.9% turnout in Lothians. Seats are more disproportionately allocated than in Lothian. The SNP polled 45% of the proper vote but left with 56% of the seats. The Greens 9% of the vote for 6% of the seats.

Party	Regional Votes	% of Vote	Constituency Vote	Constituency %	Constituency Seats	Evenutal List Seats	Total Seats	% of Seats

SNP	111,101	45%	128,443	53%	9	-	9	56%
Conservative	29,533	12%	28,906	12%		2	2	13%
Labour	59,151	24%	70,378	29%		4	4	25%
Scottish Green	23,398	9%	6,916	3%	0	1	1	6%
Liberal Democrats	5,850	2%	7,865	3%		-	0	0%
UKIP	4,889	2%	-	0%		-	0	0%
Women's Equality	2,091	0.84%	-	0%		-	0	0%
RISE	2,454	1%	-	0%		-	0	0%
Solidarity	3,593	1%	-	0%		-	0	0%
Independent		0%	699	0%		-	0	0%
Libertarian	271	0%	-	0%		-	0	0%
A Better Britain – Unionist Party	2,453	1%	-	0%		-	0	0%
Animal Welfare	1,819	1%	-	0%		-	0	0%
Scottish Christian	1,506	1%	-	0%		-	0	0%

	248,109	100%	243,207.00	100%	9	7	16	100%

The order of regional seat allocation was Labour, Labour, Conservative, Green, Labour, Labour, Conservative.

The last seat looks like a good seat for the Conservatives. In the final seat allocation they had a margin of about 3,000 votes over Labour, the Greens and the SNP. To win the seat would require those parties to increase their regional votes by 20%, 13% and for the SNP a whooping 30%. A safe enough seat for the Greens but lots of work to do to win a second list seat.

There is evidence of constituency votes switching from the SNP and Labour to the Greens and a host of small parties. These smaller parties polled just over 19 thousand votes between them.

The Liberal Democrats do noticeably worse in Glasgow than in the Lothians with 3% of the regional vote, only about 1,000 ahead of UKIP. The Women's Equality Party do a little worse in Glasgow than in the Capital. Just over 1% of the vote in Edinburgh, just under 1% in Glasgow. Rise and Solidarity do a little better in Glasgow. Had they combined themselves they would have finished above the Liberal Democrats in 5th place. 313 more people love animals in Glasgow than love Christ. Or at least 1,819 people are prepared to vote for the Animal Welfare Party and only 1,506 for the Scottish Christian Party. Both were beaten by A Better Britain - Unionists who favour a unitary British state with social democracy for all.

The SNP hold a very strong position in the Glasgow constituencies. They won all nine of them. Their smallest majority is over 3,700 and in all but two of the nine seats they won an absolute majority. The only excitement in the constituencies is that the Greens, running Patrick Harvie in Glasgow Kelvin came second to the SNP with 24.3% of the vote. The Green / Labour vote share if combined would have seen the Green's take the seat. The SNP would have then won a top up seat in the regions so not much incentive for Labour there but, really, these minor parties ought to stop messing about and splitting the left of centre vote. Harvie winning is about the only plausible counter factual I can think.

Once again, 111 thousand regional votes net the SNP nothing extra but provided a solid back up to the constituency vote, Had they slipped up in marginal Kelvin they'd have been relieved to see that many people in Glasgow went #BothVotesSNP.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Dear Green Place
Current Music: Rain Town, by Deacon Blue

Lothians

I'll be trawling through the Scotitsh election results with some excel and some plausible counter-factuals - trying to assess how close the election result was. I'm going to start with the Lothians because it's home turf and, as a Green party member, a fertile strip of beneficent and right minded voters.

Overall turn out was 57.9%. Seats generally aligned well with the regional vote tally. There is evidence that people are shifting their votes from the First Past the Post constituency vote to the regional list vote with votes flowing from the SNP. Lib Dems and Labour to the Conservatives, and Greens.

Party	Regional Votes	% of Vote	Constituency Vote	Constituency %	Constituency Seats	Evenutal List Seats	Total Seats	% of Seats

SNP	118,546	36%	137,996	42%	6	0	6	38%
Conservative	74,972	23%	67,837	21%	1	3	4	25%
Labour	67,991	21%	84,975	26%	1	2	3	19%
Scottish Green	34,551	11%	4,644	1%		2	2	13%
Liberal Democrats	18,479	6%	29,095	9%	1		1	6%
UKIP	5,802	2%	-	0%			0	0%
Women's Equality	3,877	1%	-	0%			0	0%
RISE	1,641	1%	-	0%			0	0%
Solidarity	1,319	0%	-	0%			0	0%
Independent			1,344	0%
Libertarian			119	0%


	327,178	100%	326,010.00	100%	9	7	16	100%

Starting with the regional list (also known as your proper vote). Seats were won in the following order.

Conservative, Green, Labour, Conservative, Labour, Conservative, Green

Had the Lib Dems not won Edinburgh Western and the Tories not won Edinburgh Central and Labour not won Edinburgh Southern the Greens would not have won their second seat.

The second Green seat is pretty marginal. In the last d'hondt round the Greens had 17,275 and Labour 16,668. Labour would need another 834 votes to gain the last seat over the Greens. The SNP would have need 2,042 extra votes to pick up the last seat over the Greens. Pretty tight.

If all of the UKIP voters has switched to the Tories this would not have been quite enough for them to gain a 5th seat.

The first Green seat is pretty safe. Won on the second round by a comfortable margin. It would need an additional 2,935 votes for the Greens to win the seat on the first d'hondt round.

Looking at the Constituencies - it is arguably the case that Alison Johnstone cost Alison Dickie Edinburgh Central for the SNP. In which case, from a Green point of view, good. As a Conservative loss in Edinburgh Central would have cost the Greens Andy Wightman's second Lothian list seat.

This assumes that all of the Green voters would have voted SNP. They might all have plausably voted Labour, in which case the Greens have cost Labour a second constituency seat.
Edinburgh Southern, Edinburgh Western and Edinburgh Pentlands are close. Not razor thin but close. Modest swings would see Labour lose Edinburgh Southern, the SNP lose Edinburgh Pentlands or the Lib Dems lose Edinburgh Western. Each of theparties would make up the seat on the regional list. A Labour or Lib Dem loss would do so at the expense of the Greens.

118 thousand list votes didn't get the SNP much. They were pretty comfortable winners in the constituencies they won. They would have needed a few thousand more votes to over-hang and win a list seat. But, if they'd have a couple of thousand extra votes they might well have won one of the constituencies and not been awarded the list seat.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: The People's Republic of South Edinburgh
Current Music: The Red Flag, by Jim Connell

I am entirely okay with the Scottish election results.

Although I was (and am) pro-independence in 2014, in practice it's not really on the table this Parliament - barring Brexit disasters. I don't think it's the most important issue facing our country. Plenty of stuff that we could have discussed didn't get talked about during the referendum and we should deal with some of that before going round to that particular constitutional question again.

I think the SNP are a competent government. I like that. They are also sort of centre-left. I like that - well more than a centre-right government. Rhetoric doesn't quite match the action and I think I know why that is. I can live with it.

I think the SNP have a tendency towards centralisation and close control and a broad stripe of authoritarianism. Which I don't like.

They have a tendency to be a bit soft on environmental and energy issues when jobs or the interests of their donors are affected. Which I don't like.

I don't want a Tory government (see pro-independence) and I'm not sure I quite trust the Labour Party to be different than the SNP in terms of being centralising, authoritarian not-quite-as-centre-left-as-they-think-are and I don't trust them to be competent

So a situation where the SNP remain in government but in a minority government requiring support from the more left wing and more environmentally minded Greens and from the more localist and liberal Liberal Democrats actually suits me just fine.

And if this means that it is 20 years until indepedence instead of 10 or that independence never happens - well that's a price I'm perfectly willing to pay for better, more democratic, more radical government today and over the next couple of decades.

Other plus points include...

The Labour Party having to have a long hard look at itself and I hope come out as a more liberal, more radical, more democratic, more vibrant organisation.

The Tories being the lead opposition party and getting some scrutiny beyond "Ruth Davidson looks mighty jolly on a bison and isn't it progressive that the Tories have a woman-lesbian-Glaswegian-person as leader."

The Greens get a decent chance to build up some organisational structures and some expertise over the coming 5 years.

People might stop shouting "Saor Alba - c'mon wour Nicola!" as if that some how made everything alright.

Frankly, it's about as good as it was going to get.

Current Mood: quite jolly thank'ee very much
Current Location: The People's Republic of South Edinburgh
Current Music: Big Yellow Taxi, by Joni Mitchell

I doubt the Tory election expenses scandal is going to bring down the government.

It looks like the Tories may have over-spent in 29 seats during the General Election. If this is so that might trigger by-elections but I think only in the 22 seats they won.

I can't readily see a list of the 22 potential seats but given the target areas lets guess 10-ish Lib Dem and 12-ish Labour potential wins.
If the opposition parties won all of the potential by-elections the Tories would have 308 seats to Labour's 244. Adding up all the probably Conservative supporting parties they would have 319 from 4 parties, the non-Tory supporting parties would have 325. This assumes a complete rejection of the Tories by the Lib Dems. But the party disposition looks more unstable, requiring six party co-ordination and including the SNP working with the Labour Party.

If the Tories held half of the potential by-election seats they would have 319 seats and their "coalition" would be 330 to the oppositions 313.

Not sure the Lib Dems or the SNP would fancy bringing down the government and triggering a general election under those circumstances.

So the best case for the Labour and Lib Dem parties is a weak Tory minority government. The more likely case for the opposition is a pretty stable minority government - particularly in England.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: The People's Republic of South Edinburgh
Current Music: Rainbow Connection, by Kermit de Frog

Mixed results on my predictions of the Scottish election results.

The SNP did less well than I expected. I'd predicited them winning an absolute majority based on a more or less clean sweep in the constituency vote on a vote share of just short of 50%. As it turns out they won 59 out 73 seats on 46.5% of the constituency vote. Their list vote share of 41.7% was significantly lower than I expected. They've gained constituency seats but not held up their list vote enough to avoid a net loss of seats.

I expect when I get hold of the detailed results there will be a couple of near misses and something about vote efficiency and d'hondt to be said. Hey ho.

The Tories did much better than I expected. I thought the Labour Party would just about hold on to second place overall. The Conservatives ended up with 31 seats to Labour's 24. The Tories behind the Labour Party on vote share 22% to 22.6% in the constituencies but ahead 22.9% to 19.1% in the regions. The Labour Party constituency vote looks widely dispersed and therefore inefficient.

Who'd have thought that one of the posher bits of Edinburgh would turn out to be a Labour stronghold?

The Greens did a little less well than I thought they would. I'd predicted 8 seats, they (we) won 6. However, a pretty decent result for the Greens who triple their representation, increase their vote share in the regions, return two MSP's for Lothians and did pretty well in Glasgow Kelvin and Edinburgh Central. The 2.2% increase in regional list vote share seems to have been enough for the Greens to take the last seat in several more regions.

Lib Dems win 5 seats. 4 Constituencies and 1 list seat. I think a bit of an improved situation for them. Their local infrastructure seems to be recovering and it's nice to bank a few constituency seats. I think the Lib Dems winning a few constituencies will be a factor in the Greens wining six rather than 4 seats.

UKIP no seats. Not even close. I thought they would be closer to winning a seat in a few regions. 40 thousand votes across the country. 2.0% vote share. I doubt they will pick up any councillors off the back of that position.

Looking further down the list results Solidarity and RISE both polling very low numbers. Between them about 25 thousand votes and 1.1% of the vote share. It's probably game over them. I'm not sure how they can keep an party infrastructure going with no representation and no prospect of any.

The Women's Equality Party polled just short of 6 thousand votes. That's probably not enough to build from. Particularly in a Parliament where 4 out of the 6 party leaders are women but it's good to see the apparatus in place for an electoral rebuke if Parliament continues to treat half the population as if they were not fully human.

Turn out was 55.6% - up about 5% from the 2011 election but no where near the referendum turn out.

A minority government. A majority in Holyrood for indepedence with 63 SNP and 6 Greens but I see no evidence that the nation is champing at the bit to have round two right now. The SNP with decent blocks of opposition on all sides. That should make for a more interesting Parliament.

in terms of winners and losers. Big winners are the SNP. Yes, they didn't do as well as the polls predicted or as well they did last time but any election you walk away from still being in government is a big win. The Tories and the Greens should be happy. I suspect this is peak Tory. It might be peak Green. The Lib Dems appear to have finally weathered the storm and rounded the point and other nautical analogies. The Labour Party will be disappointed. They need to win 20 seats from the SNP to have a chance of forming a government. UKIP very disappointed.

As for the predictions - were the polls wrong or was there a late swing away from the SNP? Was I paying enough attention? Or did SNP voters think they had the constituencies all sown up and distribute their list votes? Is that even the right question to ask. Difficult to tell.

More thoughts on the trajectory of the Parliament a bit later.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: The People's Republic of South Edinburgh
Current Music: Hey Johnny Cope, Are You Waking Yet, by Adam Skirving

A few election predictions. None particular controversial or insightful.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: apprehensive
Current Location: A marginal seat in North Britain
Current Music: Don't Stop, by Fleetwood Mac

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danieldwilliam

May 2025

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On Election Analysis 2016 - Highlands and Island
On Election Analysis 2016 - Glasgow
On Election Analysis 2016 - Lothians
On Electoral Results - Not Predictions - Part II
On The Tory Party Election Expenses Not Bringing Down the Government - Probably
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Entries tagged with a bit of politics

On Seven Political Musing

On Brexit Circa 30th January

On Congressional Reapportionment in 2022 and the Role of a Post Brexit UK in US Politics

On Labour and Tory Memberships and Income

On Supply Chains in Post Brexit Britain

On Complaining to the BBC About Jingoism in Strictly Come Dancing

On 25 True Facts About The DUP's Minority Government

On Trumps First 100 Days

On the Worst Pound Since I Was In Shorts

On the Prospects for Voting Reform in Brexit Ready Britain

On IndyRef 2 and stabbing our best friend in the back.

On A Provisional Vision of the Future - Post the EU Referendum

On School Rolls and the Roll of Gaelic in Edinburgh

On Election Analysis 2016 - Highlands and Island

On Election Analysis 2016 - Glasgow

On Election Analysis 2016 - Lothians

On Electoral Results - Not Predictions - Part II

On The Tory Party Election Expenses Not Bringing Down the Government - Probably

On Electoral Results - Not Predictions - Part I

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