Back to the USA, and Right Wing News expresses a kind of faux bemusement that the "ultra-left" (ie. vaguely to the left of Enoch Powell) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People should be spearheading a drive to encourage prisoners in Maine to register to vote. The 'controversy' here is that inmates are disproportionately likely to back the Democrats. The only difficulty with this complaint is that Maine is one of the two states where prisoners are perfectly entitled to vote, and the Democrats would in fact therefore be left at an unfair disadvantage if there was not an attempt to galvanise all potential voters.
Of course the US is not the only place in the world where allowing criminals the right to vote is highly controversial - Europe is split on the issue, and the UK is one of many countries which retains a legal bar. But the difference is a matter of scale. Even in the UK, which jails more people per head of population than other country in western Europe, less than 0.2% of the voting age population is debarred due to a term of imprisonment. In the US, the figure is an astonishing 2%, due to a blend of a higher crime rate, a much more draconian legal system, and perhaps most significantly of all, the fact that in a great many states felons remain debarred from voting even after they are released. So let's turn the Right Wing News point about the likely political inclinations of the people concerned on its head. Is it entirely a coincidence that in the most Republican of states, draconian criminal justice legislation just happens to be artifically suppressing the potential Democrat vote to a mind-boggling degree? When you consider that well over one in ten African American men in the US are legally barred from voting, it seems that the bad old ways of 'poll taxes' and 'literacy tests' to ensure indirect disenfranchisement of black people are still around - just in an invidious new form, one that is much harder for civil rights groups to successfully campaign against.
And yet campaign they must. Apart from anything else, can a country that currently only permits 98% of its adult population to vote actually be deemed to have maintained 'universal suffrage'? The USA - a beacon of democracy for the rest of the world, or not even a democracy at all?
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Dazzling distractions
In heated disputes over issues, there are occasions when one side seems to instinctively deflect attention from the fundamental weakness of its own case by seeking to comprehensively - and conveniently - redefine what the issue is actually 'about'. And it almost seems that the more contrived and implausible that redefinition is, the more aggressively it will be promoted. Perhaps because it's themselves that they most desperately need to convince? A classic recent example was the ban on fox hunting, an issue squarely about the prevention of gratuitous cruelty towards animals, but which was somehow magically resculpted into an issue about 'human rights' and 'tolerance towards minority groups'.
We've seen exactly the same pattern in the last few days over the issue of fair access to the proposed leaders' debates in the run-up to the general election. And the arguments that have been deployed have had previous outings, of course. In 1995, when the Scottish courts blocked the screening of an extended interview with the then Prime Minister John Major a week before Scottish local elections, we saw countless column inches bewailing the dastardly judges and politicians who had breached a 'fundamental principle' by interfering in the media's editorial independence. The issue was, in a nutshell, about protecting precious freedoms that had been hard-won over centuries. All of which, of course, amounted to nothing more than a dazzling sound and light display that was there to distract us from the rather more prosaic real issue, the one that had been specifically zeroed in on by the court - do the London-based media recognise that balanced election campaign coverage is just as important in a Scottish context as it is in an English context? As I recall, the judge specifically asked "would you have scheduled this interview one week before local elections in England?" The answer was not 'yes'.
And once again, over the last few days, some have been brazenly inviting us to believe that the attempts of certain political parties to gain fair access to leaders' debates is in fact all about those parties trying to 'ban' and 'censor' things. We've heard all sorts of hysterical references to "Kim Jong-Il" and "Chinese-style censorship". Even the normally sensible Mike Smithson joined in, I suspect due to his very strong enthusiasm for the debates taking place at all costs. His rather peculiar comment was - "Sounds like Switzerland - if it’s not compulsory it’s prohibited."
Those words came back to me a few hours ago, as it struck me that they could be far more aptly applied to a completely different issue. Here we are with countless thousands of over-65s who desperately want (and in some cases need) to work, but are in essence legally prevented from doing so. Yet at the same time we're talking about forcing lots of people who don't want to work an extra year to do just that. Does the left hand actually know what the right hand is doing?
We've seen exactly the same pattern in the last few days over the issue of fair access to the proposed leaders' debates in the run-up to the general election. And the arguments that have been deployed have had previous outings, of course. In 1995, when the Scottish courts blocked the screening of an extended interview with the then Prime Minister John Major a week before Scottish local elections, we saw countless column inches bewailing the dastardly judges and politicians who had breached a 'fundamental principle' by interfering in the media's editorial independence. The issue was, in a nutshell, about protecting precious freedoms that had been hard-won over centuries. All of which, of course, amounted to nothing more than a dazzling sound and light display that was there to distract us from the rather more prosaic real issue, the one that had been specifically zeroed in on by the court - do the London-based media recognise that balanced election campaign coverage is just as important in a Scottish context as it is in an English context? As I recall, the judge specifically asked "would you have scheduled this interview one week before local elections in England?" The answer was not 'yes'.
And once again, over the last few days, some have been brazenly inviting us to believe that the attempts of certain political parties to gain fair access to leaders' debates is in fact all about those parties trying to 'ban' and 'censor' things. We've heard all sorts of hysterical references to "Kim Jong-Il" and "Chinese-style censorship". Even the normally sensible Mike Smithson joined in, I suspect due to his very strong enthusiasm for the debates taking place at all costs. His rather peculiar comment was - "Sounds like Switzerland - if it’s not compulsory it’s prohibited."
Those words came back to me a few hours ago, as it struck me that they could be far more aptly applied to a completely different issue. Here we are with countless thousands of over-65s who desperately want (and in some cases need) to work, but are in essence legally prevented from doing so. Yet at the same time we're talking about forcing lots of people who don't want to work an extra year to do just that. Does the left hand actually know what the right hand is doing?
A beginner's guide to libertarianism
I haven't been following the American healthcare debate particularly closely, mainly because some of the details are so incomprehensible to an outsider's eyes that it's often difficult to fathom what the hysteria is about. However, it was startling today to notice the conservative blogger Dr Helen Smith describing a group of doctors as 'traitors'. I could only assume they must have done something that at least bordered on being unprofessional, but following the link to the New York Post (ahem) it transpires that they had simply sat, listened to, and applauded an Obama speech in which he set out his views on reform. Oh, and they were encouraged to dress up in white coats as they did so to denote their professional status for the cameras, and they happily obliged. And that's it.
Does this shocking behaviour breach the Hippocratic Oath? I don't have the full text to hand, but I'm guessing not. Do these doctors' political views breach the American constitution? If there was even a 0.1% chance of that, I'm guessing we might just have heard about it by now (ad nauseam, in fact). So the 'treason' we appear to be left with consists of free citizens expressing honestly-held and constitutionally-legitimate political opinions, and doing so in their own free time. The alternative course of action for them, which Dr Helen would presumably have preferred, would have been to allow themselves to be browbeaten into keeping their mouths shut about their true opinions. A decidedly peculiar position for a self-styled 'libertarian' blogger to hold. But then again, this is the Paul Staines school of libertarianism we're talking about.
Does this shocking behaviour breach the Hippocratic Oath? I don't have the full text to hand, but I'm guessing not. Do these doctors' political views breach the American constitution? If there was even a 0.1% chance of that, I'm guessing we might just have heard about it by now (ad nauseam, in fact). So the 'treason' we appear to be left with consists of free citizens expressing honestly-held and constitutionally-legitimate political opinions, and doing so in their own free time. The alternative course of action for them, which Dr Helen would presumably have preferred, would have been to allow themselves to be browbeaten into keeping their mouths shut about their true opinions. A decidedly peculiar position for a self-styled 'libertarian' blogger to hold. But then again, this is the Paul Staines school of libertarianism we're talking about.
The arc of desirability?
For all the distasteful triumphalism about the tarnishing of the 'arc of prosperity' last year, a stubborn fact remained largely unremarked upon - that one of the countries in the 'arc', Norway, had come through the global economic crisis remarkably unscathed. Yesterday it was revealed that Norway has topped the UN's annual Human Development Index, measuring quality of life - or as the BBC put it, the best places to live. Even more remarkably, Iceland is in third place and Ireland fifth. So should the arc of prosperity simply be rebranded the 'arc of desirability'? Well, to be fair, the data on which the rankings are based is two years old. But there seems little reason to suppose that Norway in particular will have slipped much since then.
And it's always intriguing to see how certain American commentators cover a story like this - can they bring themselves to concede that it might just have something to do with the Scandinavian social democratic model? I'll give you three guesses. The blogger Ann Althouse sums up why she thinks Norway is actually top with characteristic succinctness - "mainly because of a lot of extra wealth from oil". Now doesn't that remind you of somewhere?
And it's always intriguing to see how certain American commentators cover a story like this - can they bring themselves to concede that it might just have something to do with the Scandinavian social democratic model? I'll give you three guesses. The blogger Ann Althouse sums up why she thinks Norway is actually top with characteristic succinctness - "mainly because of a lot of extra wealth from oil". Now doesn't that remind you of somewhere?
Hold on, be strong, find some earplugs
I've just been having a peek at Esctoday.com for the first time in many months (for the uninitiated, it's the biggest independent website devoted to the Eurovision Song Contest). I was hoping to find out a little more about the scandal I vaguely heard about a week or two back, concerning a few dozen Azerbaijanis who were tracked down by the authorities and questioned...about why they had picked up the phone and voted for Armenia in the contest in May. Apparently there was nothing unusual or untoward in the request for an explanation. I note that Freedom House currently rates Azerbaijan as 'Not Free' - but surely the country should get special dispensation for only interfering in their citizens' lives on the grounds of dubious musical taste?
Anyway, no obvious sign of that controversy on Esctoday's main page (I'm sure it's there in the archive somewhere), but what I did find instead was a poll to decide the best Eurovision song of the decade, which has now been narrowed down to a grand final of 24. Rather refreshingly to my eyes, it's not a million miles away from a shortlist I might have drawn up myself - the two big omissions being Once in a Lifetime by Ines (Estonia 2000) and the brilliant If I Had Your Love by Selma (Iceland 2005). The absence of the former can probably be put down to the passage of time, and the latter perhaps never had a chance due to the ropey live performance which saw the song crash out unexpectedly at the semi-final stage. However, another song that met the same fate, Je t'adore by Kate Ryan (Belgium 2006) does make the cut. I'm delighted because it's one of my two all-time favourites - the other being the enchanting Icelandic ballad, Is it True?, that finished second in Moscow this year. So who to vote for? Looks like I've still got time to ponder that one.
Although I do wonder what a certain Irish Eurovision enthusiast, a man with no little pride in his unerring judgement, makes of the list. How on earth did Hold On, Be Strong go from being "clearly the worst song in the contest" in 2008 to being in the running for best song of the decade?
Anyway, no obvious sign of that controversy on Esctoday's main page (I'm sure it's there in the archive somewhere), but what I did find instead was a poll to decide the best Eurovision song of the decade, which has now been narrowed down to a grand final of 24. Rather refreshingly to my eyes, it's not a million miles away from a shortlist I might have drawn up myself - the two big omissions being Once in a Lifetime by Ines (Estonia 2000) and the brilliant If I Had Your Love by Selma (Iceland 2005). The absence of the former can probably be put down to the passage of time, and the latter perhaps never had a chance due to the ropey live performance which saw the song crash out unexpectedly at the semi-final stage. However, another song that met the same fate, Je t'adore by Kate Ryan (Belgium 2006) does make the cut. I'm delighted because it's one of my two all-time favourites - the other being the enchanting Icelandic ballad, Is it True?, that finished second in Moscow this year. So who to vote for? Looks like I've still got time to ponder that one.
Although I do wonder what a certain Irish Eurovision enthusiast, a man with no little pride in his unerring judgement, makes of the list. How on earth did Hold On, Be Strong go from being "clearly the worst song in the contest" in 2008 to being in the running for best song of the decade?
The anti-nuclear lobby's trump card?
I saw a bit of the Conservative conference earlier, and in particular a surprisingly thoughtful session in which Sir James Dyson set out the case for a return to a Britain that actually makes things, and Kenneth Baker (who to be honest I'd almost forgotten existed) set out an interesting, but probably thoroughly flawed case for a return to the technical schools that were an original part of Rab Butler's tripartite system of secondary education. I say it was 'thoughtful' partly because, highly unusually, neither man bothered with the conventional conference speech trick of inserting obvious cues for applause, and as a result there was indeed almost no applause. In spite of the slightly sycophantic subsequent cries of "I absolutely agree with James Dyson" (and to be fair he has apparently nailed his colours firmly to the Tory mast), Dyson was from beginning to end trying to get his own personal message across, and said a number of things a Conservative audience could - and perhaps ought - to have been quite uncomfortable with. There was, for instance, a little jibe about the British nuclear deterrent actually being American, and also something about the rot first setting in for Britain in 1904 - hardly sounds like an indictment of Labour rule only.
But what really caught my attention was that one of the very few rounds of applause that either man received came in response to Kenneth Baker's cry of "why should a new generation of British nuclear power plants be built by French engineers?". Could the anti-nuclear lobby (in England and Wales, I mean) just have located their get-out-of-jail-free card, in the unlikely guise of Tory Euroscepticism? Probably not, but then any chink of light is better than nothing.
'Joke of the Day' (well, I was only watching for half-an-hour) - David Willetts revealed that there will be a surge of university applications next year, as the result of a mini baby-boom in 1992. "Now we know how people celebrated our election victory that year," was the punchline. Hmmm. Leaving aside the poignant question of whether there was actually anything to celebrate, wasn't the 1992 election held on April 9th? The man they call "Two Brains" can't possibly have slipped up on his mental arithmetic, so I can only assume there were an awful lot of premature births in 1992...
But what really caught my attention was that one of the very few rounds of applause that either man received came in response to Kenneth Baker's cry of "why should a new generation of British nuclear power plants be built by French engineers?". Could the anti-nuclear lobby (in England and Wales, I mean) just have located their get-out-of-jail-free card, in the unlikely guise of Tory Euroscepticism? Probably not, but then any chink of light is better than nothing.
'Joke of the Day' (well, I was only watching for half-an-hour) - David Willetts revealed that there will be a surge of university applications next year, as the result of a mini baby-boom in 1992. "Now we know how people celebrated our election victory that year," was the punchline. Hmmm. Leaving aside the poignant question of whether there was actually anything to celebrate, wasn't the 1992 election held on April 9th? The man they call "Two Brains" can't possibly have slipped up on his mental arithmetic, so I can only assume there were an awful lot of premature births in 1992...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
A full and equal partner
Further to my last post, it seems David Maddox at the Steamie has got a distinctly odd definition of the word ‘sinister’. If he thinks a political party demanding fair coverage in an election campaign is sinister, he should try imagining Peter Mandelson creeping up on him when he’s asleep, taking a DNA swab and then whispering in his ear “don’t worry, David, if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear”.
Maddox it seems to me, rather like the posters I encountered a few weeks ago, is so completely locked into a one-dimensional London-centric world view that he’s failed to see the SNP’s demand for what it actually is. They mean what they say, they do actually want to be part of the debates! But to Maddox, that is simply demanding the ‘impossible’, therefore it is tantamount to calling for a ban, and denying the poor Scottish public the right to watch their three (ahem) potential Prime Ministers in action. (Actually, I think they might be rather relieved to end up with a hastily-arranged repeat of Taggart instead.)
Point 1 – if Gordon Brown had been planning to debate Nick Clegg, and Nick Clegg only, on primetime TV in an election campaign, David Cameron would have demanded his right to be included. If the simple principle of fair coverage had not won the day, the Conservatives would undoubtedly have gone to court to seek redress. This would have been an action of last resort and a perfectly understandable one. So why should the SNP’s stance be seen any differently, when in the 59 constituencies of Scotland they compete on an (at least) equal basis with the three parties that Maddox seems to feel have an in-built right to bonus coverage?
Point 2 – why is fair coverage for the SNP in the debates ‘impossible’? It seems to me Maddox is simply guilty of a failure of imagination here. There are two possible solutions. Firstly, yes, Alex Salmond (or Angus Robertson) could simply be permitted to participate in debates shown throughout the UK - in practice this would probably mean only in some of the debates, with Plaid Cymru taking part in others. If Maddox can't conceive of such a thing happening, I'd point him in the direction of Canada. In the general election there last year (and presumably the same will be the case in the election about to take place) the Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe took part in the Canada-wide leaders' debates on an absolutely equal basis, in spite of the fact that his party only contests 25% of the seats. Why would the broadcasters there permit such a thing? Presumably because they take seriously their responsibilities to ensure fair and balanced coverage within Quebec. Furthermore, there is a precedent right here in the UK - in the 2005 general election, there were hour long leaders' specials on ITV that were broadcast throughout the UK. And there were four of them, not three. The first was divided between Alex Salmond and Ieuan Wyn Jones - an eminently fair and sensible arrangement.
The second solution however is simply to have Scotland-specific debates - which would be shown instead of, not in addition to, the debates shown in England. I'm not talking about mickey mouse debates featuring Jim Murphy, Michael Moore and David Mundell. I mean proper, full-scale debates featuring the leaders of the four main parties contesting seats in Scotland - Alex Salmond, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Oh, wait a moment, what's this new objection, David? The London leaders simply can't be expected to find the time, or it would be beneath their dignity? Well, doesn't that say something about their attitude to Scotland, this 'full and equal partner' in our United Kingdom.
Maddox it seems to me, rather like the posters I encountered a few weeks ago, is so completely locked into a one-dimensional London-centric world view that he’s failed to see the SNP’s demand for what it actually is. They mean what they say, they do actually want to be part of the debates! But to Maddox, that is simply demanding the ‘impossible’, therefore it is tantamount to calling for a ban, and denying the poor Scottish public the right to watch their three (ahem) potential Prime Ministers in action. (Actually, I think they might be rather relieved to end up with a hastily-arranged repeat of Taggart instead.)
Point 1 – if Gordon Brown had been planning to debate Nick Clegg, and Nick Clegg only, on primetime TV in an election campaign, David Cameron would have demanded his right to be included. If the simple principle of fair coverage had not won the day, the Conservatives would undoubtedly have gone to court to seek redress. This would have been an action of last resort and a perfectly understandable one. So why should the SNP’s stance be seen any differently, when in the 59 constituencies of Scotland they compete on an (at least) equal basis with the three parties that Maddox seems to feel have an in-built right to bonus coverage?
Point 2 – why is fair coverage for the SNP in the debates ‘impossible’? It seems to me Maddox is simply guilty of a failure of imagination here. There are two possible solutions. Firstly, yes, Alex Salmond (or Angus Robertson) could simply be permitted to participate in debates shown throughout the UK - in practice this would probably mean only in some of the debates, with Plaid Cymru taking part in others. If Maddox can't conceive of such a thing happening, I'd point him in the direction of Canada. In the general election there last year (and presumably the same will be the case in the election about to take place) the Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe took part in the Canada-wide leaders' debates on an absolutely equal basis, in spite of the fact that his party only contests 25% of the seats. Why would the broadcasters there permit such a thing? Presumably because they take seriously their responsibilities to ensure fair and balanced coverage within Quebec. Furthermore, there is a precedent right here in the UK - in the 2005 general election, there were hour long leaders' specials on ITV that were broadcast throughout the UK. And there were four of them, not three. The first was divided between Alex Salmond and Ieuan Wyn Jones - an eminently fair and sensible arrangement.
The second solution however is simply to have Scotland-specific debates - which would be shown instead of, not in addition to, the debates shown in England. I'm not talking about mickey mouse debates featuring Jim Murphy, Michael Moore and David Mundell. I mean proper, full-scale debates featuring the leaders of the four main parties contesting seats in Scotland - Alex Salmond, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Oh, wait a moment, what's this new objection, David? The London leaders simply can't be expected to find the time, or it would be beneath their dignity? Well, doesn't that say something about their attitude to Scotland, this 'full and equal partner' in our United Kingdom.
A question of simple fairness
Just over a month ago, I got embroiled in a mild stooshie over at PoliticalBetting.com that trundled on for so long it almost rivalled my delightful encounter with the Kevin Baker Fan Club. (Well, perhaps not.) It began when I suggested that any political leaders’ debate that is televised in Scotland in a general election campaign must, as a simple matter of fairness, include the leaders of all four major parties in Scotland, not merely three of the four as the broadcasters seem to be proposing. This would, of course, be fully in line with the long-established principle that we see applied to Party Election Broadcasts in Scotland, where all four parties receive fair broadcasting time, not just the three London-based parties.
I was of course fully prepared for the fact that my suggestion was, to put it mildly, unlikely to attract broad support on PB.com, which is after all a heavily Conservative-dominated forum. What did startle me, however, was the utter incredulity that my comment provoked. Many posters seemed to struggle to understand (or perhaps they were determined not to) the rather simple proposition I was putting forward. “What, you think the SNP can ban the British public from watching a British debate?” was a frequent disbelieving response. No, I tried to explain patiently, I merely think that any debate shown in Scotland should feature the leaders of all four parties, and if the broadcasters fail to adhere to this obviously fair principle, the debate should not be screened in Scotland. If needs be, I added, the SNP would most certainly take legal action to ensure this was the case – a suggestion that provoked a degree of mirth. A self-styled ‘expert’ (I’m not quite sure on what) popped up to assure me I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I reminded him that the complacent ‘experts’ in London had been, to put it mildly, somewhat stunned by a Scottish court’s decision to ban the screening of an interview with John Major a week before local elections in 1995. They had been similarly stunned by the ruling in the run-up to the 2000 Falkirk West by-election that ITV’s programme ‘Ask the Prime Minister’ had breached the requirement for fair coverage of all parties.
Still the airy dismissals continued unabated. “I think you’ll find the broadcasters are planning debates for the Scottish party leaders” a number said, with a tone of ‘well that’s dealt with that, let’s move on’. Yes, I replied – additional debates, which can’t possibly balance out the SNP’s exclusion from the main debates. “What, are you actually saying that Alex Salmond should be debating Brown and Cameron?” I was asked incredulously. Er, yes, of course that’s what I’m saying. And at that point, naturally, we arrived at the last, faithful line of defence – “the main debates are only for the leaders who actually have a chance of becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,” a number of posters sniffed. What, like Nick Clegg? “Yes, because the Liberal Democrats contest seats across the United Kingdom, so in theory he has the chance to become Prime Minister.” But the Liberal Democrats do no such thing, and nor do the Labour party – neither contest seats in Northern Ireland. If this is supposed to be a debate for the leaders of parties who contest seats across the United Kingdom, we’re all going to be watching a David Cameron monologue. “Well, they contest far more seats than the SNP anyway. Do you think an SNP leader is going to become Prime Minister by contesting 59 seats?” Well, in a parliamentary system, actually yes he could. Parties do not need to win (or contest) a majority of seats to either form a minority government or to form part of a governing coalition. Highly unlikely to happen in the SNP’s case – but if Nick Clegg only needs an ‘in theory’ chance to become PM to qualify for the debate, shouldn’t exactly the same principle apply to the SNP leader? No real response to that question, just increasing murmurs that the whole discussion was becoming rather tiresome.
Well, they’d better get used to it being such a bore, because exactly as I predicted, as soon as debates became a serious prospect last night the SNP indicated that they would take steps to ensure that any debate excluding their leader would not be screened in Scotland. Of course it remains to be seen whether I or the self-styled ‘expert’ will be proved right, but it looks like we might well have our ‘day in court’ to find out one way or the other.
And the UK-wide impact of the debates, should they take place? In 1992, John Major turned down a challenge issued by both Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown to take part in a TV debate, on the grounds that “every leader who expects to lose demands a debate, every leader who expects to win declines the offer”. Given the 1992 result, it seems Major may have had a point. In which case, oddly enough, logic would suggest that the leader playing the riskier game here is David Cameron.
I was of course fully prepared for the fact that my suggestion was, to put it mildly, unlikely to attract broad support on PB.com, which is after all a heavily Conservative-dominated forum. What did startle me, however, was the utter incredulity that my comment provoked. Many posters seemed to struggle to understand (or perhaps they were determined not to) the rather simple proposition I was putting forward. “What, you think the SNP can ban the British public from watching a British debate?” was a frequent disbelieving response. No, I tried to explain patiently, I merely think that any debate shown in Scotland should feature the leaders of all four parties, and if the broadcasters fail to adhere to this obviously fair principle, the debate should not be screened in Scotland. If needs be, I added, the SNP would most certainly take legal action to ensure this was the case – a suggestion that provoked a degree of mirth. A self-styled ‘expert’ (I’m not quite sure on what) popped up to assure me I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I reminded him that the complacent ‘experts’ in London had been, to put it mildly, somewhat stunned by a Scottish court’s decision to ban the screening of an interview with John Major a week before local elections in 1995. They had been similarly stunned by the ruling in the run-up to the 2000 Falkirk West by-election that ITV’s programme ‘Ask the Prime Minister’ had breached the requirement for fair coverage of all parties.
Still the airy dismissals continued unabated. “I think you’ll find the broadcasters are planning debates for the Scottish party leaders” a number said, with a tone of ‘well that’s dealt with that, let’s move on’. Yes, I replied – additional debates, which can’t possibly balance out the SNP’s exclusion from the main debates. “What, are you actually saying that Alex Salmond should be debating Brown and Cameron?” I was asked incredulously. Er, yes, of course that’s what I’m saying. And at that point, naturally, we arrived at the last, faithful line of defence – “the main debates are only for the leaders who actually have a chance of becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,” a number of posters sniffed. What, like Nick Clegg? “Yes, because the Liberal Democrats contest seats across the United Kingdom, so in theory he has the chance to become Prime Minister.” But the Liberal Democrats do no such thing, and nor do the Labour party – neither contest seats in Northern Ireland. If this is supposed to be a debate for the leaders of parties who contest seats across the United Kingdom, we’re all going to be watching a David Cameron monologue. “Well, they contest far more seats than the SNP anyway. Do you think an SNP leader is going to become Prime Minister by contesting 59 seats?” Well, in a parliamentary system, actually yes he could. Parties do not need to win (or contest) a majority of seats to either form a minority government or to form part of a governing coalition. Highly unlikely to happen in the SNP’s case – but if Nick Clegg only needs an ‘in theory’ chance to become PM to qualify for the debate, shouldn’t exactly the same principle apply to the SNP leader? No real response to that question, just increasing murmurs that the whole discussion was becoming rather tiresome.
Well, they’d better get used to it being such a bore, because exactly as I predicted, as soon as debates became a serious prospect last night the SNP indicated that they would take steps to ensure that any debate excluding their leader would not be screened in Scotland. Of course it remains to be seen whether I or the self-styled ‘expert’ will be proved right, but it looks like we might well have our ‘day in court’ to find out one way or the other.
And the UK-wide impact of the debates, should they take place? In 1992, John Major turned down a challenge issued by both Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown to take part in a TV debate, on the grounds that “every leader who expects to lose demands a debate, every leader who expects to win declines the offer”. Given the 1992 result, it seems Major may have had a point. In which case, oddly enough, logic would suggest that the leader playing the riskier game here is David Cameron.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
YouGov marginals poll shows 9% swing to SNP
A few Scottish Labour hearts must have warmed last night at the early indications of what YouGov's massive (in terms of participants) poll contained, with the headline prediction of a result in Scotland practically identical to the 2005 election. Only four seats were predicted to change hands - admittedly these were all Labour losses. However, the detail of the poll released today paints a dramatically less rosy picture for Labour, and a very positive one for the SNP. Given that sampling was done only in selected marginal constituencies, there are no national vote shares available. However, it is possible to compare the parties' vote share in these constituencies with what happened in 2005. It's pretty much one-way traffic -
SNP up 11
Labour down 8
Conservatives up 1
Liberal Democrats down 6
If we assume a uniform national swing, that puts the SNP just two points behind Labour nationally. And whatever the individual constituency predictions (and YouGov's methodology there has been questioned by some) those figures put Labour perilously close to the territory where they would be in danger of losing a shedload of seats to the SNP.
The truly extraordinary finding (so extraordinary I'm inclined to doubt it slightly) is that the Conservatives - supposedly a party cruising to victory at UK level - are making no headway at all in the Scottish marginals. However, the Liberal Democrats' collapse is no surprise, given the giddy heights they reached in 2005 before foolishly jettisoning their greatest asset Charles Kennedy.
Also unambiguously great news for Plaid Cymru in this poll - a 4% increase in vote share, a 7.6% swing from Labour, and a projected gain of three seats.
SNP up 11
Labour down 8
Conservatives up 1
Liberal Democrats down 6
If we assume a uniform national swing, that puts the SNP just two points behind Labour nationally. And whatever the individual constituency predictions (and YouGov's methodology there has been questioned by some) those figures put Labour perilously close to the territory where they would be in danger of losing a shedload of seats to the SNP.
The truly extraordinary finding (so extraordinary I'm inclined to doubt it slightly) is that the Conservatives - supposedly a party cruising to victory at UK level - are making no headway at all in the Scottish marginals. However, the Liberal Democrats' collapse is no surprise, given the giddy heights they reached in 2005 before foolishly jettisoning their greatest asset Charles Kennedy.
Also unambiguously great news for Plaid Cymru in this poll - a 4% increase in vote share, a 7.6% swing from Labour, and a projected gain of three seats.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Palin...
So in the end I needn't have worried - Obama's stardust didn't even come close to sealing the 2016 Olympics for Chicago. Completely predictable that the President's domestic enemies would try to score points over his part in this failure, but also completely misplaced - from what I can gather about the patterns of voting in the first round, delegates were to some extent voting in informal regional blocs. This placed Chicago at a natural disadvantage, given that the US has fewer natural 'tribal' allies than the other three contenders. But the stage where this political point-scoring goes beyond being merely misplaced and becomes...well, surreal, is the stage at which people start suggesting that Sarah Palin would have had a better chance of convincing the IOC delegates of Chicago's merits than Barack Obama.
The truly scary thing is I think they actually believe it.
Also worthy of note is this startling summary by 'consultant' Bill Mallon of what the rejection of Chicago tells us about the nature of the IOC itself -
"that reveals that they’re so euro-centric and international-centric, it’s ridiculous"
Euro-centric for sending the Olympics to Rio de Janeiro? OK...
But what on earth does 'international-centric' actually mean? From my limited knowledge of Ameri-speak, I can only deduce that it's supposed to mean that the IOC is 'centred' around the 96% of the world's population who live outside the United States. Heaven forbid!
The truly scary thing is I think they actually believe it.
Also worthy of note is this startling summary by 'consultant' Bill Mallon of what the rejection of Chicago tells us about the nature of the IOC itself -
"that reveals that they’re so euro-centric and international-centric, it’s ridiculous"
Euro-centric for sending the Olympics to Rio de Janeiro? OK...
But what on earth does 'international-centric' actually mean? From my limited knowledge of Ameri-speak, I can only deduce that it's supposed to mean that the IOC is 'centred' around the 96% of the world's population who live outside the United States. Heaven forbid!
Friday, October 2, 2009
Winning without stardust
I hadn't even been aware that today was decision day for the 2016 Olympic venue candidates until I caught about two seconds on the news this morning. So I had a quick rummage around on the internet in an attempt to ascertain which city is favourite. The first two results that came up - dated early September - said Tokyo is the favourite. The third and fourth results, from the last day or two, said Chicago is the slight favourite in a very close race, with only Tokyo now thought to be out of the running. That's quite a turnaround in the space of a few weeks, and I can't quite work out how it's happened. The only explanation I can find as to why Tokyo might not be considered suitable is that it's too close geographically to the 2008 host city Beijing - but wasn't that fact already known in early September?
Anyway, perhaps it's wrong of me, but my instinct is to hope that any city but Chicago wins, for two main reasons. The Olympics were held in Los Angeles in 1984, in Atlanta in 1996 - is there some kind of unwritten law that the games have to be held in the US at least once every two decades? Given that no South American city has ever been host, yet another trip to the US really would seem like overkill. My second reason is the sight of Barack Obama arriving in Copenhagen to press the case for Chicago. How is Brazil, Spain or Japan supposed to compete with that kind of stardust? And more to the point, why should they need to? I could never quite understand how Tony Blair supposedly had such an impact in sneaking London's victory four years ago, given that a) London is London regardless of whether it has a PM with a winning smile (yuck), and b) he was never going to be PM in 2012 anyway, so any assurances he offered the delegates were fairly meaningless. (Some would say all Blair assurances were meaningless in any case.)
On the basis that it's South America's 'turn', I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for Rio tonight.
Anyway, perhaps it's wrong of me, but my instinct is to hope that any city but Chicago wins, for two main reasons. The Olympics were held in Los Angeles in 1984, in Atlanta in 1996 - is there some kind of unwritten law that the games have to be held in the US at least once every two decades? Given that no South American city has ever been host, yet another trip to the US really would seem like overkill. My second reason is the sight of Barack Obama arriving in Copenhagen to press the case for Chicago. How is Brazil, Spain or Japan supposed to compete with that kind of stardust? And more to the point, why should they need to? I could never quite understand how Tony Blair supposedly had such an impact in sneaking London's victory four years ago, given that a) London is London regardless of whether it has a PM with a winning smile (yuck), and b) he was never going to be PM in 2012 anyway, so any assurances he offered the delegates were fairly meaningless. (Some would say all Blair assurances were meaningless in any case.)
On the basis that it's South America's 'turn', I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for Rio tonight.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)