Boris didn't win because of the BNP

In the last few weeks there's been some rather high profile discussion within the Labour Party about their London mayoral candidate for 2012, with invariably a focus on why they lost the 2008 election. I don't wish to intrude on a private war, but one point I feel cannot go unaddressed is the claim being thrown around by some Labour members that Boris Johnson won the Mayoralty in part because the British National Party called for its voters to give him a second preference over Ken Livingstone. (Under the Supplementary Vote system used, these were the only two realistic options.) It is unfortunately standard "damn by association" stuff. Whilst there are many in the Labour Party who are honourable and above such behaviour, in my experience there is an element who will all too freely fling around accusations of racism as a means to get votes, not giving a damn about either truth or the polarising effect this can have on the electorate. The argument goes that Johnson's final majority over Livingstone was 139,772 and as the BNP candidate Richard Barnbrook got 69,710 first preferences then more than half that majority came from the BNP.

As is often the case in politics claims are made with only partial reference to the actual results and the truth requires a greater deal of detail to explain and will often have trouble competing with simplistic assertions made frequently and aggressively. To explain things fully it's necessary to go through the details on this.

Now the Mayoral election results are frequently badly announced and reported, because of the way the vote is counted and the second preference reported. Consequently most tables will list three figures for a candidate - their total number of ballot papers with a first preference, the total number with a second preference and (if applicable) the final result. However as that second figure includes people who gave preferences for both of the top two candidates the figures don't always add up.

For instance the figures for Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone usually appear as follows:

Johnson 1,043,761 - 257,792 - 1,168,738
Livingstone 893,877 - 303,198 - 1,028,966

In actual fact the more relevant figures for the second column are 124,977 and 135,089 - these are total second preferences cast for Johnson and Livingstone respectively by voters who voted for neither for their first preference.

The official results don't go into enough detail to tell us how every individual voter gave their first and second preferences, although it's relatively easy to use the totals given to calculate the number of Boris Johnson 1, Ken Livingstone 2 votes at 168,109, and Ken Livingstone 1, Boris Johnson 2 at 132,815 (see this forum post by David Boothroyd).

But for other candidates it's much harder to work out results. We'll come back to this later, but first lets look at the impact of the voting system on the result. Or rather the non-impact.

Advocates of preferential voting frequently argue that it breaks the "problem" of vote-splitting and can often deliver a different outcome to whoever would have won on first preferences alone. Now the Supplementary Vote is a limited model, and the voting system doesn't get much coverage, but it's notable that here the only difference to the outcome it made was to narrow Johnson's lead over Livingstone by just over 10,000 votes. This is far from unusual - in many preferential vote elections I have seen the transfers frequently make no difference to the order of elimination or who is elected, instead just dividing up in similar proportions to the first preferences. Outside of co-ordinated voting at conference, only when two strong candidates are chasing the same block of votes and both campaigns are savvy enough to appeal for second preferences and their main rival candidate has more homogenous support have there been significant changes to the outcome. (This is not to say that in a closely fought race the distribution of preferences doesn't sometimes tip the balance but it's rare. The only Mayoral election to date where this has happened was North Tyneside in 2005 when a 1400 Conservative lead on first preferences was converted into a 1002 Labour lead on transfers.)

It's true that some parties called for their voters to use their second preference a particular way, but how many voters actually follow such an instruction? Remember the UK is not Australia where use the "How-to-vote card" is perfected to a fine art (although even there vote leakage can and does occur). The Greens' candidate Sian Berry and Livingstone made a reciprocal transfer call, but how many Green voters followed through? Similarly how many BNP voters followed the party's call for a second preference for Johnson?

Well apparently Giles Edwards and Jonathan Isaby's book "Boris v. Ken" has some figures in this area. I don't have the book myself, but this post and this one gives the figures for transfers from the eliminated candidates:

Brian Paddick: Total votes 236,685. Livingstone 73,612, Johnson 70,157, someone else or blank 92,916.
Sian Berry: Total votes 77,374. Livingstone 36,365, Johnson 10,984, someone else or blank 30,025.
Richard Barnbrook: Total votes 69,710. Johnson 22,200, Livingstone 4,353, someone else or blank 43,157.
Alan Craig: Total votes 39,249. Livingstone 10,352, Johnson 10,328, someone else or blank 18,569.
Gerard Batten: Total votes 22,422. Johnson 6,671, Livingstone 1,681, someone else or blank 14,070.
Lindsey German: Total votes 16,796. Livingstone 6,661, Johnson 1,327, someone else or blank 8,808.
Matt O'Connor: Total votes 10,695. Johnson 2,485, Livingstone, 1,120, someone else or blank 7,090.
Winston McKenzie: Total votes 5,389. Livingstone 945, Johnson 825, someone else or blank 3,619.

Redone as percentages:

Brian Paddick: Livingstone 31.1%, Johnson 29.6%, someone else or blank 39.3%.
Sian Berry: Livingstone 47.0%, Johnson 14.2%, someone else or blank 38.8%.
Richard Barnbrook: Johnson 31.8%, Livingstone 6.2%, someone else or blank 61.9%.
Alan Craig: Livingstone 26.4%, Johnson 26.3%, someone else or blank 47.3%.
Gerard Batten: Johnson 29.8%, Livingstone 7.5%, someone else or blank 62.8%.
Lindsey German: Livingstone 39.7%, Johnson 7.9%, someone else or blank 52.4%.
Matt O'Connor: Johnson 23.2%, Livingstone 10.5%, someone else or blank 66.3%.
Winston McKenzie: Livingstone 17.5%, Johnson 15.3%, someone else or blank 67.2%.

Or taking just the active second preferences:

Brian Paddick: Livingstone 51.2%, Johnson 48.8%.
Sian Berry: Livingstone 76.8%, Johnson 23.2%.
Richard Barnbrook: Johnson 83.6%, Livingstone 16.4%.
Alan Craig: Livingstone 50.1%, Johnson 49.9%.
Gerard Batten: Johnson 79.9%, Livingstone 20.1%.
Lindsey German: Livingstone 83.4%, Johnson 16.6%.
Matt O'Connor: Johnson 68.9%, Livingstone 31.1%.
Winston McKenzie: Livingstone 53.4%, Johnson 46.6%.

Unsurprisingly a lot of votes transferred in line with ideology but there were some very significant leakages. Less than half the people who voted Green followed the call for a Livingstone second preference. Less than a third who voted BNP followed the call for a Johnson second preference.

The BNP transfer contributed only about 18,000 of Johnson's final majority of 139,772 - hardly a decisive factor. It was the strong campaigning by Johnson and outreach to the whole of London, as opposed the Livingstone strategy of just being a Mayor for certain inner London boroughs, that produced the massive increase in votes that won him the Mayoralty.

Victory for the Right

The right won a national election this week. Not that the media seem to have noticed - the BBC story is buried on their website and I can't remember seeing anything about it in other media, in sharp contrast to the endless deluge about certain other elections. But in New Zealand the conservative National Party has swept to power (BBC News: New Zealand opposition wins vote) and John Key will join a worryingly short list of conservative national leaders. Meanwhile Helen Clark has announced her resignation as leader of the Labour Party.

So does this, and Stephen Harper's recent advance in Canada, mean that the real conservative right (as opposed to the Bush Republicans) are now on the advance? There does seem to be something in the air. And how long will it be before they are joined at the world table by David Cameron?

And the new President is...

The votes have been now been counted. The results are in and the next President is:

Ros Scott.

Yes she's the next President of the Liberal Democrats.

What you thought I was late in with the news about some other election?

Don't be silly, the Americans take forever to count the vote. That doesn't stop them somehow declaring a winner beforehand!

Oh and here are the results:

Ros Scott 20,736 votes (72%)
Lembit Öpik 6,247 votes (22%)
Chandila Fernando 1,799 votes (6%)

Spoil ballots 49
Turnout: 47.8% (+0.4% on last time)

Yes, the Cheeky Boy isn't very popular with his party.

Lembit Democrats Losing Here.

So where will the Curse of Lembit strike next? There's an interesting thread (well as interesting as any Lib Dem thread) at Liberal Democrat Voice: What next for Lembit? Lembit Öpik doesn't seem to know if he's rising star, would-be elder statesman, celebrity politician in the Charles Kennedy mould or the "character" of the party. The result is he gets treated as alternatively the Clown Prince of the party or a privately hated figure.

Does this lack of enthusiasm for him have any bearing on how well his campaign to hold his parliamentary seat will go?

It's almost over

As much a politics junkie as I am, I have been getting ever more sick to death of the US Presidential election. Compare it to the Canadian election that was called and fought in about six weeks! (And shame on the media for barely giving a mention to one of the most successful Conservatives in the Anglosphere. Stephen Harper is practically unknown in this country, even amongst Conservatives.)

Soon it will be over. I have a suspicion it's going to turn out closer than expected. And if we do get another case of the popular vote going one way and the electoral college another I hope the US will actually make a decision about whether they want such a silly system. Or if it's the Democrats losing again they can stop whining and remember that it was the college not the popular vote that gave John F. Kennedy the White House. (Or that Barack Obama did not win the popular vote in the Democrat primaries...)

President Lembit?

News has come through that Lembit Öpik has left the Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team to campaign full time for the position of President of the Liberal Democrats. (BBC News: Opik leaves Lib Dem front bench) He is in a fierce battle with Chandila Fernando and Baroness Scott. Tellingly several senior Welsh Lib Dems are not supporting their former leader. And there have been rumours, officially denied of course, of a plot by Vincent Cable and others to prevent a Lembit victory. (BBC News: 'Stop Opik' plot denied by Cable)

I don't know why they're bothering. People do not talk about the Curse of Lembit for nothing. It may have just failed to sink Nick Clegg but there's a whole trail of ex leaders and unsuccessful candidates who had Lembit's support and found they needed it like a hole in the head. Why does he think he can buck the trend himself?

Maths (or constitutional law) for learners

I've just seen BBC News: US rivals in economy crisis talks about the response of John McCain and Barack Obama to the growing financial crisis. Whilst McCain's response by suspending his campaign is an act of statesmanship, putting country about ambition, Obama's response of continuing to grub for votes is a sign that he is developing some of the worst features of Hillary Clinton.

But what really caught my eyes was the following:

Americans needed to "hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess", Mr Obama told journalists.

The next President does not take office until the 20th of January. So either Obama can't count (it's 117 days) or has forgotten that the new President doesn't take office on election night (so much for his claims to be experienced because he once taught constitutional law).

At such a difficult time for the economy, does the US and the wider world really want a learner in office?

So what are the Labour leadership rules?

It's often the case that the leadership rules for a party go unnoticed until people start speculating about the weakness of the incumbent. And then they discover all manner of obscure clauses in the rules that can prove fatal. For example how many people knew that the "15% lead on the first ballot" requirement in the old Conservative rules referred to 15% of the total electorate rather than those voting (a modification made in 1975), which proved critical in 1990?

And now whilst Gordon Brown is running around sacking all and sundry for daring to suggest a leadership election might be the solution to his problems (BBC News: Whip sacked over leader bid call, Ex-minister seeks Labour contest and PM sacks critic Gardiner as envoy) it has come to light that the rules may not have been followed. A clause apparently requires nominations to be sought each year, but the nomination papers have not been sent out to all MPs automatically for years. This could lead to an interesting showdown at the next Labour National Executive Committee meeting.

But regardless of the outcome it seems too late for anyone to challenge Gordon Brown now. The only way he can resolve the ongoing leadership saga before it causes further damage to this country is to take matters into his own hands and initiate a leadership election himself.

But Gordon is not bold but Brown.

The leadership election is on!

My apologies for not blogging for a while but several other matters have consumed my time lately. But news caught my eye today of the imminent leadership election. After just a year in post, during which confidence in him has steadily eroded and many have looked to other leading figures who in the past declined to run for the leadership, he's finally taken the plunge to face his critics head on and called a leadership election to settle the matter.

So is Brendan Nelson going to keep his job? Will Peter Costello finally actually stand for the leadership after a record of not doing so that dwarfs David Miliband's? Or will it be Malcolm Turnbull?

What, you thought I was talking about another party's leadership problems? You seriously expected Gordon Brown to find his bottle? Or David Miliband to find a nomination form?!

For more details about the Liberal Party of Australia leadership election, 2008, see ABC News: Nelson calls leadership spill

John McCain shows his grace

Thanks to Iain Dale's Diary: McCain Shows His Class for this one. John McCain has put out the following advert to congratulate his opponent:

It's not an advert to win votes but a reminder that politics doesn't have to be ridiculously partisan at all times. Well done that man!

McCain - Palin

The very first time I visited the United States I began the trip in Anchorage, Alaska, So I've always found it strange when many Americans have talked as though it doesn't exist (e.g. the idea that Chicago is in "the midwest" when Alaska stretches the geographic west a long way). Maybe with the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate that will change.

She is certainly a bold choice, as Juneau is almost as far away from the Beltway as you can get, and both her home town of Wasilla and Fairbanks, where she was inaugerated as governor, are even further. As a political maverick herself, having taken on both party establishments in Alaska, she makes the perfect complement to John McCain. What a contrast to a Democrat ticket claiming to be "change you can believe in" and made up exclusively of Wasington DC insiders.

And yes she's the second woman to be a major party nominee, and the first on a ticket that can actually win. She didn't get there through a political marriage, she has risen on the back of her own merits. This is a real way of cracking the glass ceiling and is a true victory for all women in politics.

And it's Joe Biden

Barack Obama has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate. (BBC News: Obama picks Biden as running-mate ) It's a bold move in one sense - Delaware has just three votes in the electoral college and is a pretty reliable blue state. But in another it means Obama now has his own Lloyd Bentsen who could prove to be far more credible than the Presidential nominee. And a campaign promoting "Change we can believe in" now has not only an all Beltway ticket but now includes a man who entered the Senate when Obama was prepubescent.

If there is one significant move in all this it's that increasingly the Vice Presidency is tacking away from being a stepping stone to the Presidency - who can seriously envisage a Biden 2016 bid? Instead the role is becoming more and more a significant office in its own right. And in turn that will make nomination battles more open and competitive. Dick Cheney (who also comes from a tiny state his party never needed to worry about) may well have made his best long term contribution to the office here.

Obama stops walking on water

The latest opinion polls are not looking good for Barack Obama. The Boy Wonder is slipping into a dead heat despite having far more campaign finance and far more television coverage than John McCain. (BBC News: Why has Obama's poll lead slipped?) McCain's legendary underdog ability to triumph over superior odds is coming to the fore and at a time of rising fuel prices Obama is starting to run on empty.

So he needs to pull a rabbit out of a hat, aka choose a Vice Presidential nominee who can boost him. Times have changed since the days when delegates at party conventions got drunk over dinner and laughed about who to nominate, then carried forward the joke to the vote, resulting in people like William Wheeler going from one form of obscurity to another whilst Presidential nominees were left wondering just who their running mate was. (Rutherford Hayes famously said to his wife "I am ashamed to say: Who is Wheeler?")

Nowadays the choice is treated more seriously but is there really a stunning Democrat who can join the ticket and magically turn around Obama's chances? I somehow doubt the choice announced today (BBC News: Obama set to reveal running-mate) will do that.

How long do elections last?

I've just read Mike's Election Guide 2008 by Michael Moore. There's a lot I don't agree with, although his comments about excessive restrictions on Little League Baseball games so that children are only allowed to make a total of thirty-eight pitches are spot on.

But it's his comments about how long US elections last that made me want to laugh out loud. Noting the Presidential election officially began in 2006 he comments "Here in the US it lasts almost as long as the Ming Dynasty."

Now could he possibly have had in mind Ming Campbell famously trying to deflect leadership speculation by declaring "The last Ming dynasty lasted 267 years"? And then his own lasting less than two?

Well it made me laugh!

Just now on the The Daily Show (Global Edition) Jon Stewart mentioned how Barack Obama, has set up Fight the Smears to deal with all the accusations flying around. But perhaps he should have picked "I Can't Believe That I Barack Obama Have To Deal With This Shit."

However it was taken.

So no more President Clinton

Today Hillary Clinton is going to do what she should have done days ago and concede she's lost the race for the Democratic nomination. BBC News: Clinton to bow out of campaign She has learnt the hard way that she did not have a God Given Right to it and her attempts to bypass the voters by appealing to super-delegates or sending a mob to harass the Rules & By-laws Committee to get a favourable outcome would, if successful, have made her not the Democratic Nominee but the Undemocratic Nominee.

Why has she taken so long? Is being a sore loser inherent in the Democrats' nature? Or is just hard for Clinton to accept that it's not going to be her?

If there's one thing that's irked me more than anything else about her campaign it's been the argument that she should be elected so there can be a woman President and break the glass ceiling. Well if she had won the nomination and Presidency (and inflicted the horror of another term of the Clintons on the world) it wouldn't have been a triumph for women. It would have been a triumph for political marriages.

The US has a number of women in high political positions who have got there on their own merit - Nancy Pelosi and Condoleezza Rice to name but two. But Hillary Clinton is not in this category.

The US and the wider world needs change for the future. Not changing to the past. There are now two very good candidates who each represent a forward direction of change. But let's hope that Barack Obama is sensible enough to not put the past in the Vice Presidential slot on the ticket.

Recent quietness

One thing after another has got in the way recently, hence my quietness. But don't worry, normal service is resuming.

And I note that the US Democrat nomination is still running. Are they trying to bore us all to death?

How the London Assembly could have been so different

Amidst all the euphoria or sorrow about the results of the GLA elections there's been comparatively little number crunching about the Assembly results. And one area has not been given much light at all - the potential for large parties to game the system to maximise their advantage. And the results are surprising.

The Assembly is elected by the Additional Member System, another name for Mixed member proportional representation and I can no better than recommend the Wikipedia article for details. But also take a look at Overhang seat for details on how the system can produce disproportionate results if a party wins far more constituency seats than its list vote "entitles" it to.

Since a party's success in a constituency cancels out its entitlement on the list, one can legitimately wonder what would happen if a party was able to uncouple its constituency and list results and run as two nominally separate parties that will act as one in the assembly chamber. When Italy used this system major parties on both the right and left set-up decoy lists with the result that they both gained far more seats than the implementers of the system expected. (For the London Assembly it may not be necessary to have a strict "decoy list" itself as constituency candidates do not have to be attached to lists.)

In the interests of fairness I've done the calculations three times, looking at the effect of each party then both running decoys. And the results make for interesting consideration.

As elected the Assembly had the following result:

11 Conservatives (8 constituencies, 3 list)
8 Labour (6 constituencies, 2 list)
3 Lib Dems
2 Green
1 BNP

Now if the Conservatives had run a decoy then the results of the assembly would be as follows:

15 Conservatives (8 constituencies, 7 list)
6 Labour (all constituencies)
2 Lib Dems
1 Green
1 BNP

The main effect would be that the Conservatives would have a majority in the Assembly, whilst Labour would not have a single list member and thus have no representation at all for much of London. Both the Lib Dems and Greens would lose a member, with the latter also losing recognised party status and thus their entitlement to group support funding. (I don't know if the Assembly rules would allow them to form a "technical grouping" with the BNP to qualify for funding but since that's realistically not going to happen let's not speculate.)

But what if instead Labour tried a decoy? We get:

8 Conservatives (all constituencies)
12 Labour (6 constituencies, 6 list)
2 Lib Dems
2 Green
1 BNP

This time round the Conservatives are left without any list representation. Labour are now one seat short of a majority and if Labour, Lib Dems, the Greens and the BNP all combined together (as they already did at the first Assembly meeting) then they would have a 2/3 majority to block the Mayor's proposed budget.

And if both parties tried decoys? The result would be:

13 Conservatives (8 constituencies, 5 list)
10 Labour (6 constituencies, 4 list)
1 Lib Dem
1 Green
0 BNP

Yes the BNP would be off the Assembly. Both the Lib Dems and the Greens would be down to a single member without recognised party status, and it would be interesting to see if they could put aside their rivalry to form a technical grouping to share party funding. (I don't know if this is technically possible.) Meanwhile there would be a Conservative majority in the Assembly.

Now will anyone else pick up on this and consider trying this tactic? Something similar was attempted by Forward Wales at the last Assembly election who ran all their candidates as independents, but the votes just weren't there for them. How long before the major parties try it? Or will the system get abolished before then?

It wasn't just London that went blue...

In the aftermath of last week's local elections various vote tallying is still going on, but one interesting figure has emerged - the Conservatives won the most votes across Greater Manchester. (Manchester Evening News: Tories beat Labour in race for votes and David Ottewell's politics: Did your vote count?) The raw figures are Conservatives 211,818, Labour 210,130 and Lib Dems 153,533.

So all the talk of the Conservatives being only a party of the South, and particularly weak in Greater Manchester, seems rather wide of the mark.

Hat tip to Iain Lindley: Tories Beat Labour Across Greater Manchester

PR - not the Holy Grail of Lib Dem electoral success?

There's an interesting post at Liberal England: Why are the Lib Dems so bad at PR elections? that wonders why the Liberal Democrats seem unable to rake in the votes once they get a "fair system" [sic]. (Their latest setback has been the loss of two of their five London Assembly members. Now the Assembly group can hold its meetings on a rickshaw!)

Some of this may be down to the particular system used - see my comments on the details - but it also suggests that the Liberal Democrat vote is rather softer than many think, and only snowballs when ruthlessly targetted. When it has to compete with other options and can't hide behind misleading bar charts it becomes exposed to the winds and does weakly, sometimes even worse than under first past the post.

So where does this leave the campaign for proportional representation?

The future's bright! The future's blue!

What a week!

Manchester United.

Liverpool.

Livingstone.

Truly this is the season to be blue!

I don't think I need say any more.