Archive for category Elections

“All parties are to blame here..”

It’s the standard cry of flacks for the larger and more tarnished parties. Every time a secret dining club with the PM is revealed, every time a millionaire donor turns out to have come by his money through fraud, every time a PM is questioned over cash for peerages, every time a half a million pounds arrives just before policies the donor doesn’t like are dropped.

And of course it’s not true.

Every recent party of government is at it or has been at it or looks like they’ve been at it, but those of us who work for or volunteer for shoe-string operation parties like the Greens get seriously tired of hearing we’re just as bad. Tired as in, in my case, a strong desire to throw the radio out of the window. It suits the corrupted class to swirl their hands in the sewage floating up around their midriffs and pretend that all parties are in just as deep. If all politics is equally corrupt, they imply, why stop voting for us just because we are? No-one else is any better. We’re all in the sewer together.

Seriously, it’s not true.

Sure, Greens have had larger donations in the past, although I can’t remember anything above £20k. Sure, I hoped we’d find a rich donor in good time before the 2011 election to compete with the Soutar warchest and the unions’ money and all the rest. Perhaps we just haven’t had a chance to be corrupted yet. But I don’t think so.

So what can be done about this party funding mess? Leave it as it is and hope the fear of being caught will reduce the likelihood of it being repeated? The evidence is against that. Soutar gave the same amount of money again to the SNP last year despite the 2007 outcry over their abandonment of bus re-regulation, which remains comfortably abandoned. Neither Blair nor any of his associates ever faced trial over cash for honours. The Lib Dems never even gave Brown’s donation back to the people he’d defrauded it from (I regard this as the most egregious on this list, incidentally).

The current wrangle over donations founders on two things. First, parity – will the Tories take enough from Labour through capping union donations or fragmenting them and, conversely, will Labour block enough of the funnel that leads from big business to the Tories?

The “fairness” battle between Labour and the Tories is an odd one, but pragmatically I accept they both need to be happy with the outcome. Personally I’d ban all collective donations to political parties – corporations and unions (collectively) unbalance politics with large donations and are in that way undemocratic, although unions’ other activities remain vital. So by all means make it easy for individual Labour-supporting trade unionists to give to their party, or indeed trade unionists who support any other party to give as they wish. Similarly, individual shareholders are people too, and if they want to give to the Tories or to any other party, fine, so be it.

Second, what about state funding? The public won’t wear state funding, we’re told, although the return on investment would be substantial if the quid pro quid was a system capable of ending the money-go-round. And the large parties won’t wear living on the small and capped donations of their members. So where else could the money come from for state funding?

Well, here’s a crazy interim idea. Donations. Eh? What? Here’s the idea. Take 50% of every donation to every political party and redistribute it according to the votes cast at the last election (or a rolling average across types of election). A hypothecated tax, if you will. A big donor would know that his or her preferred party will benefit most from their donation, but their donation would also be supporting fair funding for other parties too. Yes, it’s crazy. Other suggestions welcome. We can’t go on like this.

The pros and cons of #operationhilarity

Yesterday Michigan voted and Mitt Romney duly squeaked the state of his birth ahead of Rick Santorum, someone assumed previously to be a joke – partly because of Dan Savage’s magnificent redefinition of his name, and partly because he’s the quintessential wingnut.

He’s come out against education, he remains a total homophobe, and he’s gone beyond opposition to abortion and into opposition to contraception, which he described as “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” Rick, if God didn’t want us to use johnnies, he wouldn’t have let us work out how.

He also lost his own Senate seat in 2006 by 18 points. Normally getting humped in your home state isn’t the perfect setup for a run at the Presidency. Oh, and his sartorial sense reminds me of Ned Flanders, although even Ned would never lose the sleeves.

The vote in Michigan was closer than would have been imagined a few months ago, though, partly because of the momentum with which he’s been coming from behind, and partly because of #operationhilarity.

The Republicans themselves pressed to open up their nomination process in Michigan to independents and Democrats and make it an open primary. The Democrat blogs and network mavens, having no use for a Democratic vote in Michigan, pushed for a vote for Santorum instead.

The Daily Kos launched the idea two weeks ago as #operationhilarity. The logic is that someone so grotesquely odd and out of touch with the middle of American politics can’t possibly win a general election, so make him the Republican candidate and ta-da! Obama cruises to a second term. Also, watching Rick crash and burn would be truly first class entertainment. As Markos put it, “it’s freaking hilarious. I mean, Rick Santorum? Really? The Republicans have offered up this big, slow, juicy softball. Let’s have fun whacking the heck out of it.

Rick even played along, having his campaign robo-call blue-collar “Reagan Democrats” to encourage them to vote for him. The combined result? Democrat participation up to 10%, and they split for Santorum more than three to one.

Mitt won anyway, but was this a good idea by Democrats?

On one level it illustrates the absurdity of the American electoral system. However, no amount of doing so seems to lead to change. In fact, the recent changes to campaign finance laws confirm the trend, as put by Michael Spence to the New York Times, that we’ve seen “an evolution from one propertied man, one vote; to one man, one vote; to one person, one vote; trending to one dollar, one vote.”

Another perspective, set out in a first class article by Jonathan Chait, says this is the Republican right’s last chance to hold the line on social issues against the coming tide of young people, gays, Hispanics etc. Obama dispatching Santorum would be a clear victory in the 1990s-and-onward reheated version of the 1960s culture wars, true.

But so too would Obama-Romney. Mitt’s made himself into a staunch wingnut that he now has to deny his best achievement in every debate. The outcome would surely be the same, ideologically and practically.

The downside of Rick Santorum being his party’s nominee might be more subtle. He’d bring the far-right theocrats out to vote in larger numbers in November, and the coat-tails effect on House and Senate races would mean disproportionately more of that particular crowd would get elected. No-one goes out to vote Republican in November because they’re passionate about Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney probably isn’t even passionate about himself. But a post-Santorum Congress could be filled with some pretty unpleasant material indeed.

pic is Rick made of gay porn

The Independence Referendum: Floating Voters or Flighty Voters?

photo by comedy_nose

A guest today from Dr Paul Cairney, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Head of Department of Politics and International Relations at Aberdeen University.

Say what you like about Lord Ashcroft, but he gets things done with money. While most of us might have been muttering under our breaths about the leading nature of the SNP Government’s proposed independence referendum question, Ashcroft just spent some of his money trying to show how leading it was. His comparison of three questions shows that the wording of the question does seem to have an effect on responses. While 41% agreed that ‘Scotland should be an independent country’ when merely asked to agree, 39% agree when invited to agree or disagree. That figure reduces further to 33% pro-independence when people were asked ‘Should Scotland become an independent country or should it remain part of the United Kingdom?’ (oddly, there were no ‘undecideds’ in these polls, so the remaining respondents go down as ‘no’ votes). We have always known that there would be this kind of effect. In fact, it was more marked when the first SNP Government produced the more convoluted question ‘I agree [I do not agree] that the Scottish Government should negotiate a settlement with the government of the United Kingdom so that Scotland becomes an independent state’. This wording is one of the few to produce a plurality in favour, presumably because many people will feel that they are not yet being asked to choose (although the latest poll takes us from a slim lead for ‘agree’ back to a slim lead for ‘disagree’). In most other cases, and at most other times, a different wording generally produces a lead for the ‘no’ vote (see the 14-plus different ways to ask the question in chapter 7 here; compare the survey approach with Susan Condor’s work (on English attitudes to change in Scotland), which just asks people what they think – it suggests that they care much less about these issues than forced choice surveys suggest).

The usual conclusion is that we should look at longer term trends, to see if the same question shows more or less support for constitutional change over time. For example, support for independence has, for decades, been about one-third to two-fifths when people are given the option of choosing to retain or extend devolution instead. It may fluctuate, and that fluctuation may be a good story for the papers, but the trends are fairly clear. This is not the argument I want to pursue here. Rather, I think we should focus more on the potential for fluctuation. The referendum will be held on a particular day in a particular context after a particular campaign. Therefore, while the trends will give us a broad idea of public attitudes, they will not tell us what will happen if we witness a ‘perfect storm’ of events that produces a particular attitude on a particular day. I am not suggesting that people will radically reverse their views at a moment’s notice. Rather, I am suggesting one or more of four things. First, some people will be torn between the options and, if not given the comfort of further devolution as a choice, will not know what to do. Second, some people will have a clear idea of what they want, but without doing much soul searching to come to that conclusion. Third, some people will base their decision on a very small amount of information. Fourth, some people will get that information from biased sources and might see things differently if subject to a competing view. Overall, if many people are unsure, or their certainty is based on limited and biased information, it may be possible for a strong campaign – combined with key events – to change people’s minds for a little while. The best example for me so far was the Conservative Government gambit on giving permission to hold the referendum in 18 months. This sort of nonsense could produce all sorts of emotional reactions in the most calculating or ambivalent people.

I want to give this issue more thought than Lord Ashcroft, but I have less money. So, with my colleagues in psychology and physics at Aberdeen, I am developing an online project that probes people’s views about independence and examines how likely it is that those views will change when they are presented with new (or newly framed and sourced) arguments. We will gauge people’s existing knowledge and searches for information, then present them with the chance to agree or disagree with new arguments as presented by different people (on the assumption that they will react differently to arguments presented by, say, Alex Salmond or George Osborne). I need your help. I have a decent idea of the key arguments made about independence so far, and can do a trawl of the papers to make sure. However, I am sure that I have not heard them all. Can you think of pro- or anti- devolution arguments that would not fit into these broad categories (for example, I am not sure where to place the idea that the SNP’s image of governing competence will/ will not affect support for independence)? Or, can you think of some unusual examples in each category?

Economic – e.g. an independent Scotland could not have bailed out the RBS/ the Scottish Government would have avoided the catastrophe; an independent Scottish Government can tailor taxes and growth strategies to Scotland; businesses are happy/ will leave in droves; Scots will be better/ worse off in an independent Scotland

Economic deficits and North Sea Oil – Scotland relies on UK subsidies; the UK relies on Scottish oil

The State – Scotland will be a high tax, high spending country; the Scottish Government will reduce taxes to promote growth

European Union – someone will veto Scotland’s EU membership; we can decide whether or not we want to join; we will have to negotiate our entry or exit; we will have a larger or smaller voice in the EU

The Euro – we will have to join it; we can keep the pound until we choose to join it

Defence – will radically change/ not change Scotland’s role regarding the armed forces and nuclear question; Scotland will lose soldiers and defence contracts

Scotland and the UK – we will have to rebuild Hadrian’s wall and present passports at the border; key relationships will not change

Social attitudes – more Scottish than British? Devolution as a compromise between Scottishness and Britishness? People want/ do not want independence or more powers

History – Scotland as a stateless nation which demands self-government; the UK as a stronger, united country

Constitutional Issues – independence will solve the ‘English question’; the English should have their say; a referendum in Scotland has no legal authority; Scotland will keep the Queen as head of state

International affairs – we will have a small international voice; we will have to recruit a new generation of diplomats

Prediction 2012 – Death of the Cybernat

 

To my ears, 2012 is a fantastic, futuristic,far-off place, populated with daleks and space odysseys. But the future is now, and like all good science fiction, this prediction is probably as preposterous and as far-fetched as its title suggests, but with that tiny grain of truth that makes it plausible.

Unlike the poor badgers, the death of the cybernat this year won’t be as a consequence of a cull. More accurate would be to say this year will see the demise of the stereotype negative cybernat. But that would make a more boring, less Doctor Who-esque post title. Nationalists and independence supporters will continue to dominate Scottish politics’ digital sphere. They’ll just do so in a relentlessly positive fashion.

To win in politics needs professionalism and edge. Professionalism in standing good, able candidates, in communicating your message to voters and in calculating your strategy and tactics to defeat your opponent. The experience of 2007 and 2011 demonstrates the SNP has this in spades, while every sudden unexpected Subway sandwich stop and rolling news headline crash of Scottish Labour demonstrates otherwise. No doubt the 2012 Local Government elections will continue to demonstrate this trend in results in May.

Edge is harder to define. It’s the magic ingredient in any election which decides a winner between two even candidates. Even taking the above, for all the SNP’s success, to most voters there is little in terms of policy, or outlook, or local representation, to separate most SNP candidates from most Labour candidates. It comes down to which party has the edge, the slight nose in front of the other, to give it the win.

Political parties try to win the edge off the other by framing the debate on their own terms and then amplifying their message within the frame. The simplest and often most effective way to do this is to go negative. In Scottish terms, it helped Labour claw back to within one seat of the SNP in 2007, but wasn’t a stratagem it could employ in 2011 after lifting the SNP’s manifesto.

The harder, but in the long run more effective, way to gain an edge is to go positive and stay positive. And this is where our beloved negative nasty cybernats will disappear, as a sacrifice for the good of the independence referendum.

The referendum won’t be in 2012, but the SNP’s campaign, given Scotland Forward‘s launch, is already in action. Compared to referendums, elections are a piece of the proverbial to win – I jest, but if you turn up, look and sound good to enough voters, don’t do anything stupid and spend wisely you’re most of the way there.

To win a referendum, however, requires a paradigm shift in people’s minds, an act of persuasion so big and inspiring they become willing to rewrite the base codes of how they live and are governed. Much easier to be on the side of No, where I suspect Labour will entrench itself,  where you simply have to tell people such a shift cannot be done, for positive and negative reasons, although I also suspect the latter will dominate.

But one way the independence movement can persuade people of the need for this this shift is through relentless positivity. If the transition from devolved Scotland to independent Scotland is associated with positive words like fortunate, blessed, diverse, beauty, unique, rich, colourful, potential (and all these words are just from Alex Salmond’s first paragraph of the introduction to ‘Your Scotland, Your Future’), then the paradigm shift won’t seem so big and scary, and the unionist side’s claims won’t ring so true.

I’d be shocked if several copies of George Lakoff’s ‘Don’t Think of an Elephant’ weren’t knocking about Gordon Lamb House, which explains in beautiful detail why this might just work for the Nationalists. The positive frame is where the SNP need to keep the independence debate to have a chance of winning, and the opposition haven’t yet managed to steer them off it. And this relentless positivity won’t just be from parliamentarians, but from party members, both online and offline. There will of course be outliers, but the SNP’s professionalism as it operates towards achieving its ultimate cause will ensure it amongst its membership.

So farewell cybernats. Given Scottish Labour’s new Twitter Tsar, negative digital discussion has probably just moved across to the other side of Scottish politics, but I look forward to editing your relentlessly positive commenting below and in the future. Remember, after all, a referendum is at stake..

Prediction 2012 – Labour to lose its grip on Glasgow

If my 2011 predictions are anything to go by then I should really be giving 2012 a miss. However, despite not living in my once-envisaged Iain Gray governed, AV wonderland, I shall limit myself to one prediction for 2012 and, over reaching further than an MSP discussing foreign affairs on Holyrood’s dime, for 2013.

First up, 2012. 

With so much of the coming year’s Holyrood business already well known and positively anaemic, not to mention the UK’s focus so distinctly unScottish, it is difficult to know where to look to find something to predict around. One could suggest that Rennie, Lamont and Davidson will continue to fail to lay a glove on Salmond this year, that the SNP Government will continue to fall short of its climate change commitments, that the Edinburgh trams will run into more difficulties and that the Scottish people will remain stubbornly around the 30% pro-independence mark, but you wouldn’t get very high odds on any of those anyway. 

What is marginally less likely, considerably more exciting and what would certainly drive a coach and horses through the modern history of Scottish Politics is the SNP taking control of Glasgow Council. And I predict that it will happen when May comes around.

Having Anas Sarwar and Johann Lamont in newly promoted positions will help Labour’s chances (and in that order of impact) but the SNP’s momentum, the well established Nicola Sturgeon and the irrepressible First Minister’s clout will see the Nats have the edge. Needless to say, if the contest is the SNP election machine vs Labour’s 2011 machine, then there will be only one winner.

In Glasgow particularly, the Health Minister Nicola Sturgeon may yet be the poster child for people paying more for their booze, in theory a damaging position to be in, but any such continued negativity from opposition parties will surely be more of a hindrance than a help after a 2011 that saw positivity being the name of the game. 

No, it is surely time for Glaswegians to see that Glasgow isn’t working and hasn’t been working for some time now. Health, drugs and life expectancy remain awful in comparison to the rest of Scorland (and beyond) and you can only blame those that have been in charge for that, as voters finally shall. Even a change for a few years will breathe healthy air into the corridors of power at City Chambers, ensuring a healthy competition between rival parties drive up results for all. 

And a traditionally Labour City that is governed by the SNP at council and national level hosting a successful Commonwealth Games mere months before an independence referendum could add up to a crucial extra 3% or 4% in favour of independence, based on population size and current polls. That is purposefully intended to be arguable but it’d certainly be a far cry from the days when Stephen Purcell was the hottest prospect in Scottish Politics. 

So onwards and upwards for Team SNP then? Well, yes, for a year or so anyway. My 2013 prediction revolves around the belief that the SNP are peaking too early and will be the victims of tall poppy syndrome and target practice before too long. Tony Blair may have put it off for longer than most but it is inevitable for all administrations and their leaders. And let’s face it, with record-breaking poll results, poppies don’t come much taller and targets don’t come much wider than the SNP and Salmond right now. 

It was, and remains, fun to be on the SNP bandwagon, to have a Cabinet of many talents that hold newer, fresher ideas than the opposition. But the public’s expectations from an incumbent Government only ever rise and that fickle public will soon enough tire of the Salmond chuckle and the SNP chutzpah. It will soon be more the done thing to sully the SNP than to support it, especially after the party runs out of new things to run, with the trophy of Glasgow Council safely on its mantelpiece.

Will that change in fortunes come before the all-important referendum? I believe so unless there is a snap plebiscite in the next 18 months. 

But that’s 2013 and this is 2012. Here’s to a great year and another round of elections, whoever the winners are.Â