Another Oxford Union debating trick

Daniel Hannan, the Conservative MEP, in his Telegraph blog entry:

for much of the post-war era, German (or West German) governments have tended to fall between elections, as a result of shifting parliamentary coalitions, rather than at elections.

and the swift rebuttal from political scientist, and election specialist, Matthew Shugart:

There is one key problem with that argument: it is false. We could grant him the example of the FDP switching partners in 1982 and changingd a government from SPD-led to CDU-led before the end of a term. At least in recent decades, that is the only example we could grant him.

Yet another example of how the Oxford Union debating style grooms persuasive speakers that are mercenary about their facts. From James Fallows’ 1991 criticism of the Economist’s grip on the American political class:

The other ugly English trait promoting The Economist’s success in America is the Oxford Union argumentative style. At its epitome, it involves a stance so cocksure of its rightness and superiority that it would be a shame to freight it with mere fact.

American debate contests involve grinding, yearlong concentration on one doughy issue, like arms control. The forte of Oxford-style debate is to be able to sound certain and convincing about a topic pulled out of the air a few minutes before, such as “Resolved: That women are not the fairer sex.” (The BBC radio shows “My Word” and “My Music,” carried on National Public Radio, give a sample of the desired impromptu glibness.)

Technorati Tags: debate, elections, politics, proportional-representation

Beware of machines bearing votes

Johannes Schmid forwarded this very disturbing video from YouTube:

Why a company with shady political connections and a disreputable security track record continues to be contracted to supply voting machines, I don’t know.

Technology is neutral. But belief in the infallibility of it is irresponsible, misguided, and .. perhaps actively encouraged by people with vested interest. Big Brother is watching YOU!

Canadian GE

… as in General Election, not General Electric. Or, to be precise, the federal election. Today is the last chance to vote for those who have not voted in advance, so it’s going to be a cliffhanger, not just for Canadians but also for a lot of us here in the States.

Why, you might ask. Well, all the rhetoric made by a proportion of liberals after the 2004 elections is predicated on Canada having a Liberal government. Both capital and lower-case ‘L’. As of tomorrow morning, that might not be the case. Meanwhile, American conservatives would be cheering on the man from Alberta, Stephen Harper, who appears to be triangulating himself between his core conservative supporters on one end, and the electorate at large on another

Would this be a mirror of the 1993 federal election? It saw the right-wing vote splintering, and as a result, an 11-year liberal majority, before the 2004 election returned the outgoing minority government. Would the NDP supplant the liberals as the main left-of-centre party? Assuming the voting pattern in Ontario is stable, the Liberals’ long-term future probably hinges on the outcomes in Quebec (traditionally a Liberals-BQ contest, with the Libs imploding) and British Columbia (Liberals vs NDP).

With the lack of PR, it’s hard to predict the final outcome, so mine is probably as valid as half the predictions out there:

Liberals	90
Conservatives	140
BQ	48
NDP	30

.. with Michael Ignatieff narrowly winning his riding by a margin of < 2000 votes. No clear winner, but with the two main incoming opposition parties losing support they would probably not rock the boat, so the minority government might last more than 2 years. The NDP would probably prefer to hang on to its gains as long as possible as well.

Categories: Canada, Election, Politics

UK General Election ‘05: The revolution will be blogged

(As posted on LJ, in an attempt to figure out if Technorati has problems with tracking LJ blogs)

Stayed up rather late in the hope that I get to witness the Lib Dems getting their 60th seat in Westminster, but that was not to be.. after wondering whether they’d actually get there, considering a lot of the 20-odd seats left would be in Northern Ireland, which has had an entirely different political map for at least over a century, I woke up late this morning to a nice surprise: Lib Dems are at 62 seats!.

A lot of the gains are taken from Labour, and three of their seats fell back to the Conservatives (but two of those are won at by-elections and one was a Labour defector, so it looks quite good), but the Lib Dems are now in second place in 160 seats, 50 more than before. And they’re doing this despite the reduction in seat allotments north of the border, which on paper should hurt them more since they are historically stronger in Scotland than in England, but turns out Labour losses there more than make up for it.

Students seem to vote disproportionately in their favour, with Bristol West and Cambridge turning yellow, which bodes well for the future. A slight dampener to hopes of a more representative election system (with PR elements, preferably first-past-the-post plus a top-up party list ala the Scottish Parliament) is that apparently some pro-PR Labour MPs lost their seats [This is a low, Guardian blog]. The Lib Dems and smaller parties are currently way under-represented – with their 22.3% share of the vote, in a pure PR system the Lib Dems would have over 140 seats, instead of the current 62 (unlikely to be more than at most 63 or 64 when all dust settles). Meanwhile, Labour has 355 seats to the Conservatives’ 197 despite leading them by less than 3% in the popular vote.

A good analysis of the Lib Dem result here [Markos Moulitsas, Guardian], and thanks to the_wild_iris for linking to a humorous guide [Daily Kos] to the British electoral system. Congrats on Solihull ousting the Cons!

[Update - 1:36PM] It’s amazing how well the exit poll predictions hold up [Scotsman] – Labour majority is now at 65 seats with 5 seats still to declare, compared to the 66 seats predicted yesterday

Categories: Lib Dems, Britain, Elections, Politics