European Elections live blog
I’m no longer live-blogging. The results are below, and there’s many more of my thoughts on my twitter page.
Big Stories
- Labour now third nationally at 16%.
- BNP get two MEPs elected
- Greens biggest winners in SW and SE (2 MEPs)
- UKIP share of vote increases by less than 1% since 2005.
- Tories biggest winners of tonight
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Is Paris Hilton really Britain’s best performing MEP?
Is the TaxPayers Alliance’s latest report, ‘Could Do Better? Grading the Performance of British MEPs‘, its worst ever?
There’s no lack of competition, but this report is breathtakingly stupid.
MEPs are measured against criteria including “campaigning activity”. This is defined as “their frequency as internet hits, demonstrating campaigning and local activity”. However many times I read that explanation – and despite working as a web designer – I don’t understand it.
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Labour women: demonised and dismissed
Think what you will of Flint’s resignation – but don’t put your criticisms (or your photos) in gender-loaded terms. Personally I think Flint’s resignation was opportunistic, badly orchestrated and ultimately self-defeating; but I don’t think it was a “silly woman” losing her head because of oestrogen and an X chromosome.
Across the media, Flint was portrayed in starkly sexist terms. She’s “flounced out” of the cabinet in a “hissy fit”, throwing “a stiletto in the heart of government”.
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We are the Social Liberalist Party
article by Anton Howes
The Social Liberalist Party is one of Britain’s youngest political parties. Its ‘front-bench’ of policy spokespersons, and the majority of its members are predominantly in their teens or twenties, but the Party still manages to include a wide spread of ages.
Part of the SLP’s mission statement is to make politics enjoyable and engaging again, committing us to informality, open-mindedness, free membership, and a willingness to not only accept criticism but to actively pursue it in order to self-improve. This requires a degree of humility at times, but that’s something that is often lacking in the self-important politicking that pervades our institutions, from Whitehall to the local council.
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Their shameless hunger for power
post by Elle Dodd
Caroline Spellman was speaking on radio 4 this morning. I can’t find the exact quote but she said something like, it’s great that Tories are winning in the Midlands and the North because they are the battlegrounds.
We all know what she meant: the lower classes in the industrial towns have not been known to vote Tory, and now they are, that makes a Tory victory at a General Election more likely. An analysis that is hard not to agree with. But something about it really struck home how power hungry and goal driven politicians have become.
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The case against First Past the Post
There is a voting system that exists that tends to take away the meaning of your local MP as a representative, a system that allows a minority of MPs to greatly influence the direction of laws passed by the House of Commons, a system that encourages back room dealing and negotiations away from the public eye. That voting system is First Past the Post (FPTP).
For a long time now we, supporters of electoral reform, have spent our time defending the supposed negative aspects of good PR systems. We have to contest with the broad and misleading statements of the likes Cameron makes, and we have to defend against shoddy government spin of shoddy reviews in to the subject.
The reality is that it is now time for FPTP to be put in the dock, to try to put an end to the sort of articles that blindly make sweeping statements for FPTP. In this time of reform the narrative shouldn’t be why the PR systems are supposedly bad, but why does anyone think that FPTP is any better?
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Let’s talk about Alan Johnson’s ‘backstory’
There is a new political cliché abroad. Large numbers of commentators are keen to point out that Alan Johnson – Britain’s new home secretary, and possibly its next prime minister – has got something called a ‘back story’.
I’ve heard several Labour politicians – all obviously singing off the same cripsheet – use the expression in broadcast interviews. Meanwhile, an editorial in The Economist this weeks makes conspicuous mention of his ‘penurious and industrious back story’, while The Scotsman is eager to point out that ‘Johnson’s back story is as good as it gets’.
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The good side to resignations
The good points
1. James Purnell is gone and discredited.
2. Hazel Blears is gone, and discredited.
3. John Denham now has a bigger role.
4. General Election averted.
5. Adam Boulton on Sky looks foolish for scaremongering.
6. Alstair Darling remains (the FT called for him to stay)
7. Geoff Hoon also gone!
8. John Hutton standing down as an MP
10. Tony McNulty has gone!
11. Caroline Flint has gone (why didn’t she resign earlier?)
Bad points
1. Alan Sugar!??
2. Alan Johnson is going to become insufferably authoritarian, and thus disliked.
3. Gordon Brown is still around.
4. Caroline Flint gone (hardly any women left)
5. Peter Mandelson is still around.
Tom Watson’s resignation letter
This was the letter Tom Watson sent to the PM
Dear Gordon,
The sense of privilege I have felt as one of your Ministers since 2007 hardly needs stating. But I also want to tell you what an enormous pleasure it has been. In 18 months at the Cabinet Office I would like to think that I have helped our government to think about information in new and better ways. I have tried to be a champion for the digital community, where lie some of our best and brightest talents and much of our nation’s future success.
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Moderate Muslims fight back
Bizarrely, from the Daily Fail, comes good news for British moderate muslims. One of the straw men often presented to the moderate muslim community (apart from “There is no moderate muslim community!”) is that if they existed, and cared, and were not tacit fascists, they’d be out in the streets protesting against or confronting the militants in their own community.
Where are the moderate muslims shouting down Omar Bakri? Where are the muslim Britons defending our troops from the insults of extremists?
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