The Öpik History Wars

For many one of the biggest shock results in last year's general election was Conservative Glyn Davies's gain of Montgomeryshire from Lembit Öpik. But for some it wasn't a surprise at all and had been predicted for years.

Now that is standing to be his party's candidate for Mayor of London, there has been a lot of talk about why he lost so dramatically - the biggest anti-Lib Dem swing in a held seat, the most distant Conservative gain and the Lib Dems losing a seat that was supposedly "Liberal forever (so long as they remember to campaign)". And there's some fierce fighting over recent political history.

It's become such an issue that even Öpik's nomination manifesto (warning that's a very BIG file) feels the need to address it, saying the following:

CRITICISMS ANSWERED HEAD ON
Lembit lost his seat in 2010
The failure of the party to retain both the parliamentary and Welsh Assembly seat in 2010 and 2011 in Montgomeryshire is linked to the drunken altercation between Assembly Member Mick Bates and a paramedic which led to his prosecution and to him leaving the party. Many were aware of Lembit's celebrity profile and assumed that this was the cause of the loss. Regrettably the party did worse in 2011 even indicating a common factor for both poor results.

This just does not convince. And it's unsurprising that it's provoked blog post responses from both the Lib Dem Welsh Assembly Member Peter Black (Lembit Öpik and the rewriting of history) and Conservative MP Glyn Davies (Lembit - take it on the chin like a man.).

I've commented myself on the matter - see for instance my comments at Dave Hill's London Blog: London Lib Dems will choose their mayoral candidate from field of four for my trading the statistics - and so for now I'll just confine myself to showing that the defeat was being predicted long before Mick Bates hit the paramedic, even if not everyone picked up on it.

First from a Usenet post I wrote two years ago:

Montgomeryshire isn't quite the "Liberal forever (except when they're too busy planning centenary celebrations to actually campaign to retain it)" bastion of legend but in several ways is very much a personalist constituency. Now sure I have my personal biases but much of what I've heard from there (including from my sister, who until recently lived and worked in Machynlleth at the very west of the seat and is somewhat to the left of me), Lembit Opik's popularity is shrinking faster than an asteroid burning up in the atmosphere because of his clowning around, high profile personal life and lack of any serious political track record.

By contrast the Conservative candidate is Glyn Davies is widely respected across the political spectrum - I've heard many Plaid members openly say a lot of good things about him (and even that they'd vote for him) - and if anything has increased his appeal by losing his list seat in the last Assembly elections only because the Conservatives gained two constituencies. Whilst the Assembly list results aren't a 100% guide to what will happen in a Westminster election, it's notable the Conservatives topped the poll there.

Furthermore with the Liberal Democrats under pressure in the neighbouring seats of Brecon & Radnorshire and Ceredigion they simply can't target all their energy in Mid & West Wales on Montgomeryshire even if they wanted to - and from comments by Lib Dem activists I get the feeling that many would not want to anyway and are certainly not going to haul themselves great distances to allow Lembit to carry on as Mr Celebrity.

(Message from discussion Opinion poll in Wales on uk.politics.electoral at Jun 16 2009, 11:08 am

Next there's UK Polling Report's specific discussion on Montgomeryshire. Many amateur (and not so amateur) psephologists comment there and unrealistic predictions are easily shot down. People were predicting the Lib Dems were in Öpik-specific difficulties as early as February 2007, with the earliest outright prediction of a loss in July 2008.

Finally there's the Vote UK discussion thread on Montgomeryshire. The earliest outright defeat prediction was in September 2007.

One other point has emerged - Öpik neither wrote his own manifesto nor checked it before it was submitted - see his comments in WalesOnline: Peter Black launches furious attack on 'self-obsessive' Lib Dem colleague Lembit Opik. If he's not even in control of his own campaign, how could he ever hope to be in control of London?

Know thine enemy "partners" - the Liberal Democrat MPs

I've recently been doing some statistics compilation about the electoral record of the Liberal Democrat MPs to help some others answer various questions about how much the traditional image of the party is still true. The findings are surprising and I thought I'd share them here.

Of the current 57 Lib Dem MPs, only one has had a break in their Commons service. Mike Hancock was first elected in a 1984 by-election, lost in 1987 & again in 1992, but returned in 1997. (For all these statistics bar continuous ones I use Hancock's 1984 election.)

Just five first entered Parliament at a by-election - and only two since the merger, one in a Lib Dem held seat.

The traditional image of Lib Dem MPs gaining their seat after multiple attempts now covers only the minority of the parliamentary party. No less than thirty-two of the fifty-seven MPs won their seat on their first attempt there. Eighteen had not stood for Parliament at all before, eleven had stood once before in other seats and just three had had two previous unsuccessful candidacies.

Out of the twenty-five who first won their seat after multiple attempts, fifteen had only stood in that seat. Eighteen won their seat on the second attempt, four on the third attempt, two on the fourth attempt and one on the fifth attempt.

On average then a Lib Dem MP has won their seat after 1.63 attempts in that seat and 2.19 attempts overall.

Only fifteen MPs were first elected in an already Lib Dem held seat; the other forty-two gained theirs from other parties. The Lib Dem Cabinet Ministers disproportionately represent the "inheritees", with Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne and Michael Moore all having inherited their seats. (So too did David Laws, whom Moore net replaced.)

The inheritees are very much at the newer end of the parliamentary party. The longest serving was first elected in 1997, the rest were all in the last decade - 6 in 2001, 5 in 2005 (including one in a by-election), 3 in 2010.

Lib Dem MPs have on average been in Parliament for nearly eleven years. The mid point for election falls at the end of the 2001 intake.

The intakes by general election break down as follows: 1983 - 2, 1987 - 1, 1992 - 2, 1997 - 13, 2001 - 8, 2005 - 17, 2010 - 10. The five by-election entrances were in 1973, 1983, 1984, 2003 & 2005. Only one MP remains from the pre-Alliance era, and only five more from the Alliance days (with two having come from the SDP).

A slightly different picture emerges when looking at how long the party has held each seat since. Lib Dems seats have on average been held continuously for fourteen and a half years. The mid point is within the cluster gained in 1997. The longest continuously held seat is Orkney & Shetland (since 1950).

The breakdowns by general election are as follows: 1950 - 1, 1955-1979 - none, 1983 - 4 (2 Lib, 2 SDP, only one of whom was the sitting MP), 1987 - 2 (both Lib), 1992 - 4, 1997 - 18, 2001 - 3, 2005 - 13, 2010 - 7. Five seats were gained in by-elections in 1965, 1973, 1983, 1994 & 2003.

Three MPs have had parliamentary careers elsewhere - John Thurso was in the Lords for four years before the hereditaries were expelled and both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne served in the European Parliament for 5 & 6 years respectively.

What all this shows is that overall the Lib Dems are slowly moving out of their traditional niche of local campaigners wining after repeat attempts or at by-elections, and towards a more standard party model and breed of politicians; with in particular MPs who make their name in the party nationally before selection and who can get picked in seats different to their locality on merits other than their local record. But it is a slow process, with many of the older style of Lib Dems still in the parliamentary party, and one that may be reversed if the Lib Dems' see a major collapse at the next general election. Nevertheless the party is changing and the old ways of reacting to it are becoming obsolete.

It's also striking how Nick Clegg is very much at the extreme in this shift. He is the first Liberal or Liberal Democrat leader to have entered the Commons in an inherited seat since Clement Davies (leader 1945-1956). He is also one of very few of his party's MPs to have arrived in the Commons with a established parliamentary record. Clegg's election to the European Parliament was entirely due to the party list system whilst he inherited a strong majority and he has not contested any other constituency meaning that at no stage in his career to date has he really had a tough electoral fight amongst the voters at large. This lack of a background in the traditional Lib Dem frontline of street level politics may also explain the growing sense of detachment between the Lib Dem leader and his party; a detachment that could grow to be the Coalition's biggest vulnerability.

The end of the News of the World and the beginning of...?

You turn away from the news for a while and the big one comes. The News of the World is to close, with this Sunday's edition as the last ever. Given all the ghastly revelations this week and the backlash, especially from advertisers, this move was probably inevitable.

I don't actually buy the News of the World (or indeed any Sunday paper) so I couldn't exactly boycott it myself. I won't miss it much. However I do feel sorry for innocent staff on the paper who have lost their jobs. Many journalists on other sections knew little to nothing about the phone hacking, to say nothing of other staff working on or for the paper - cleaners, layout arrangers, photographers, website managers and so forth. I hope that they will not suffer too greatly for others' sins.

But what does this all mean for the newspaper market? British newspapers are traditionally quite stable and the News of the World had been running since 1843, notably pre-dating the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1855 and the paper duty in 1861 which led to a boom in cheap papers aimed at the working classes. Of the other national Sunday papers only The Observer (est. 1791) and the Sunday Times (est. 1822) are older, but few are that young - the youngest of the major Sunday papers is the Independent on Sunday and that's twenty-one this year. It's a market where a large portion of the readership is hereditary and the sudden disappearance of a paper with such a huge circulation could shake things up seriously.

Of course a new Sunday newspaper could be launched - a lot of people are predicting "The Sun on Sunday" - but just how much of the readership would successfully transfer to a new title? An alternative possibility could be if The Sun is bold enough to challenge the traditional split in newspapers and become a seven day paper. After all the Saturday editions of papers have grown into distinct entities without becoming separate titles, so why should the Sunday papers be different? But I suspect the market isn't yet ready for that even though this is the best opportunity in years.

And what will be the political impact? The News of the World, like the other News International titles, endorsed Labour in the Blair years but switched to the Conservatives in 2009. I've long felt the formal endorsements by newspapers in the last couple of weeks of the election don't actually swing many votes but rather the line their coverage takes in the preceding months and years is the key factor.

If the simple consequence of all this is that the News of the World is merely replaced by another such Sunday paper that picks up virtually all of its readership and maintains the same position on the political spectrum then very little will have changed. But if things are more shaken up then there could be some surprising consequences to come.

The longest pretender

Yesterday Otto von Habsburg died. He was the son and heir of the last Emperor of Austria and had been the pretender to the thrones of Austria and Hungary (and Croatia and Bohemia) since 1922. Previously he had been the heir since 1916,

It seems incredible that until yesterday a First World War heir was still alive. A reminder both that people are living longer and longer and that the war was more recently than many think.

His long tenure as pretender to the throne is, I think, the record. Pretenders "reigning" longer than actual monarchs is not so unusual - the Jacobite Old Pretender had a reign in pretence for over sixty-four years, even longer then Queen Victoria's reign.

Of course actually being on the throne for a long time is a very different thing from being the person who "should" be on the throne, if that throne is even still around.

No more bendy 25

A year ago I posted Bye bye bendy 25 noting the announcement about the contract change that would bring with it the end of bendy buses on my local route, the Number 25.

Today is the final day that bendies run that route and I caught one this evening. As ever it was the same awful experience that make people hate them so much and I'm not sorry to see them go. It's good to see Boris delivering on his pledges!

Political defections

David Campbell Bannerman MEP today defected from UKIP to the Conservatives. And cue the standard script whenever someone changes party:

The Losing Party: "The people didn't vote for this; there should be a by-election. This defection is just a spot of personal pique! Good riddance to good rubbish!"

The Gaining Party: "Our new recruit is a formidable politician who shows our party is a broad church able to reach out to all. And only a few partisan politicians want a by-election."

Etc etc...

Has anyone ever known a serious political party tell a would be recruit that they cannot join until they first have a by-election?

A Conservative majority? Yes They Can(ada)!

Belated congratulations to Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada who last week won a majority in the general election.

Yes after years of hung parliaments they now have a majority Conservative government. Additionally the Liberals crashed and burned badly, losing over half their seats including the leader's, and the separatist party was nearly wiped out.

I feel very envious of our Canadian friends.

Referendum lessons

The Alternative Vote referendum ended this week in spectacular style. After a lengthy campaign, and no end of debate in certain circles (especially Twitter!), the result is through and the message is clear - voting system change (let's stop pretending it's "electoral reform") is dead for a generation.

But there are other clear lessons from this exercise and some of them aren't so comforting.

Much of the country's recent experiences of referendums has, up to now, been limited. Some of the votes have been near invisible local ones. Others have had weakened or non-existent opposition. There are some exceptions, but by and large this vote has been the first time many have experienced a strongly contested vote, with all the campaign tactics and mud slinging that goes with it.

Many can be disappointed by the way both campaigns went about things, but at the end of the day this wasn't a politics lecture. It was a vote to decide an aspect of how the country is run. The tasks for both campaigns were to win the vote, nothing else. They set about that task using methods they believe work. But one campaign made some serious miscalculations about the public attitude.

The Yes campaign by and large pitched itself at something it believes exists called the "progressive majority" - the idea that Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and Nationalist voters all belong to some grand tribe and that only splits between them have kept the Conservatives in power. But the harsh reality is that few voters identify with this concept - maybe a handful of the Guardian reading metropolitan liberals & intelligentsia (just look at the handful of areas that did return a Yes vote) but that's about it. It was also a dangerous strategy because it ignored the right and gave them no reason to vote for AV - simply having Nigel Farage on the list of AV supporters wasn't enough.

Furthermore a lot in the Yes campaign had for years believed the public wanted a change to the voting system and would flock to vote for one if only those wicked self-interested politicians would let them. Complacency ruled early on. They forget that whilst opinion polls had indicated there was a lot of support, most voters really don't have strong opinions on what voting system should be used and can be swayed by a campaign. Furthermore it really isn't a political priority for most voters beyond a certain set of chattering classes.

Now just for a moment change a few words in this. Imagine it wasn't an AV referendum but an EU one. Imagine the withdrawal campaign is pitching just for the right Conservative/UKIP voters. Imagine that many withdrawalists look to the opinion polls and take a vote for withdrawal as a foregone conclusion. And instead the stay in campaign mobilises well and secures a thumping victory.

It's not inconceivable. After all the right has its own kind of chattering class and obsessive, who don't always accept that their cause is not the public's priority, who don't realise more ground work is needed. To listen to some Eurosceptics you'd believe that all that's needed is to simply get a referendum called and everything else is a formality.

That kind of complacency is dangerous, but it's present behind most of the calls for an immediate referendum on withdrawal. More must be done before that happens.

Papua New Guinea doesn't use the Alternative Vote

We keep hearing the mantra repeated that only three countries in the world use the Alternative Vote - Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Invariably the focus has been on the first of these three, where data, studies and commentary is most readily available. Of the other two, Fiji has its problems that are rather more deep seated than the voting system, and Papua New Guinea appears misreported.

Papua New Guinea adopted the Alternative Vote in the past but switched to First Past The Post in the mid 1970s. In 2003 they changed the system again, but contrary to much casual reporting they didn't adopt the Alternative Vote.

Instead they adopted the Limited Preferential Vote - see Papua New Guinea Electoral Commission - Limited Preferential Voting for the official description on it.

Now I'm sure many of you are wondering what the difference is. Well under LPV a voter can only indicate preferences for a limited number of candidates. Rounds of transfers follow. A version of this system is actually used in the UK for Mayoral elections, albeit with voters allowed only two choices and the second round involves only the candidates with the two highest first preference totals.

The Limited Preferential Vote displays many of the same issues as the Supplementary Vote and neither of them really qualify as the Alternative Vote. Hardly any AV campaigners in the UK hold up the Supplementary Vote as an example of AV, and the Limited Preferential Vote isn't one either.

So that's two countries that use AV then...

Extremists and AV - Australia's One Nation

As the Alternative Vote referendum approaches the debate's heating up and the argument has turned on how extremists like the British National Party will do under the system. With so few countries using AV there aren't that many comparisons out there, but there's one Australian party with a record to look at - One Nation.

One Nation was founded in 1997 by Pauline Hanson, a sitting federal MP, David Oldfield and David Ettridge. Hanson was originally nominated as the Liberal candidate in Oxley in the 1996 federal election but between nominations and polling day she was expelled from the party after she gained national fame from calling for the abolition of government assistance for indigenous Australians. However it was too late to nominate an alternative candidate or even remove "Liberal" from her place from the ballot paper. She went on to win the hitherto safe Labor seat. The following year she joined with Oldfield and Ettridge to form One Nation and the party had some successes, particularly in Queensland at the 1998 state election.

However the major Australian parties responded to One Nation by both trying to undercut its vote base and encouraging tactical voting against it, with Hanson defeated at the 1998 federal election. One Nation was also riven by splits with most of its elected members leaving the party and the New South Wales branch went solo (with the farce of the "One Nation" name in NSW being used by one group for state elections and another for federal elections) and losing its sole elected member as well. Some members founded breakaway parties like the City Country Alliance or the New Country Party; these parties also went nowhere.

Psephos - Adam Carr's Election Archive has all the election results from this period and shows the outcome. So without further ado:

Federal 1996 - House of Representatives in Queensland

Federal elections are conducted under the compulsory preference version of AV in which a voter needs to indicate preferences for all candidates in order for their vote to count at all.

(For the pedants out there, there were two minor exceptions at the time, though one has since been eliminated. If a voter numbers all but one candidates in order the blank space is taken to be a last preference and their vote is counted. There was also a provision in the law that if a voter numbered candidates but either skipped or repeated a number then their vote would be counted up until the "error" and then no longer transfer or "exhaust". There was a campaign in the early to mid 1990s to get voters to take advantage of this error overcoming mechanism to get de facto optional preferencing - see Langer vote for more - and by the 1998 election the provisions in the Electoral Act were changed so such votes are now invalid.)

As mentioned above Hanson was nominated as the Liberal candidate in Oxley but between nominations and polling day she was expelled from the party but it was too late to nominate an alternative candidate or even remove "Liberal" from her place from the ballot paper. Compared to the Liberal performance in 1993 she nearly doubled the first preferences to take 48.6%. Following the elimination of three Independents and the Greens she took enough transfers to get over 50% (although the majority transferred against her). Though not necessary to determine the winner, the elimination of the Australian Democrats saw transfers in her favour, pushing her to 54.7%.

Queensland 1998

One Nation won eleven seats in this election, which used the optional preference version of AV in which a voter need only indicate a single preference to be valid and which the UK will be offered. In none of the seats did they get 50% of first preferences. The seats broke down as follows:

Most first preferences but under 50% and won

• Barambah (43.5%)
• Burdekin (33.1%)
• Lockyer (39.8%)
• Maryborough (42.6%)
• Tablelands (42.0%)

Second on first preferences but won on transfers

• Caboolture (29.9%)
• Hervey Bay (33.8%)
• Ipswich West (38.6%)
• Mulgrave (31.0%)
• Thuringowa (34.9%)
• Whitsunday (30.7%)

Most first preferences and defeated on transfers

• Burnett (36.4%)
• Crows Nest (39.5%)
• Gympie (29.2%)

(None of these seats had separate Coalition candidates from the Liberal and National parties)

Crudely translating first preferences only into First Past The Post results would have given One Nation 8 seats under FPTP. Instead they won 11 under AV.

The overall result was Labor 44, the Nationals 23 & the Liberals 9, One Nation 11 and Independents 2. In theory One Nation could have held the balance of power but one of the Independents agreed to support a Labor government. Subsequently a One Nation MP resigned from the parliament and Labor won the resulting by-election, gaining an outright majority. The remaining One Nation MPs split with half forming the City Country Alliance and the rest going independent.

Federal 1998 - House of Representatives in Queensland

One of the biggest problems for de facto independent one member parties is that boundary changes can often undermine their electoral base. Changes at the 1998 election nominally made Oxley an Labor seat and Hanson contested the new Blair constituency, taking in parts of Oxley.

With competing Liberal and National candidates in the field plus more independents, Hanson topped the poll on first preferences with 36.0%. However Labor and the Coalition recommended preferences to each other. The Liberal candidate started in third place but overtook Labor on National preferences, then took the bulk of the Labor preferences to defeat Hanson 53.4:46.6. Note that Hanson still picked up 10.6% or over 7000 votes in preferences.

Queensland 2001

Most first preferences but under 50% and won

• Lockyer (28.3%)
• Tablelands (36.0%)

Second on first preferences but won on transfers

• Gympie (25.7%)

Most first preferences and defeated on transfers

There don't appear to have been any such cases.

Once again the crude comparison is FPTP 2, AV 3.

The overall result was Labor 66, the Nationals 12 & the Liberals 3, One Nation 3 and Independents 5. This time One Nation was a little more coherent and managed to lose only 1/3 MPs in the parliament.

Queensland 2004

Most first preferences but under 50% and won

• Tablelands (47.0%)

...and none of the other cases so no crude comparisons are necessary.

One Nation was now in heavy decline and riven by splits. Its sole MP here basically functioned as an Independent.

The overall result was Labor 63, the Nationals 15 & the Liberals 5, One Nation 1 and Independents 5. For once One Nation ended the parliament with all the members it started with.

Queensland 2006

Over 50% of first preferences

• Tablelands (50.4%)

One Nation only ran four candidates in this election; the other three secured tiny results of less than 5% each.

The overall result was Labor 59, the Nationals 17 & the Liberals 8, One Nation 1 and Independents 4. Once again One Nation managed to keep its only member for the full parliament.

Queensland 2009

The regular scourge of Independents and minor parties, boundary changes, abolished Tablelands. One Nation ran only two candidates including their sitting MP in the new Dalrymple constituency but she came second on both first preferences and final transfers. Their sole other candidate got just 2.9%.

The overal result was Labor 51, the now merged Liberal Nationals 34 and Independents 4.

Other victories

Between 1998 and 2001 One Nation also won seats in the federal Senate and the state upper houses in New South Wales and Western Australia (Queensland doesn't have an upper house); however these are all elected by Single Transferable Vote. For what it's worth all their NSW and WA elected members left the party as well, with the NSW branch going solo and losing its sole elected member as well. Yet another breakaway party was formed by two WA members, called the New Country Party.

So overall what do these results tell us about AV and extremists? Well Pauline Hanson's defeat in 1998 despite getting the most first preferences is easy to zoom in on as she was the party leader and in the federal parliament; however it's worth remembering that it was under compulsory preferencing and she would have had a stronger chance under the optional system the UK is being offered. On the other hand One Nation had 16 victories in Queensland under optional the very system the UK will vote on; the crude FPTP comparison would have given them 12. If anything that suggests optional AV was marginally in their favour.

It's also clear that other parties declaring One Nation to be pariahs did not mean every single other voter followed those parties. And whatever voting system is used this alone will not decide the fate of extremist parties; it's how the political mainstream responds to voters' concerns that has the greatest effect, along with the propensity of small parties to disintegrate into squabbling fractions.

The BNP may have decided to oppose AV but the above figures show that a far right party has done better under AV than it likely would have under FPTP. Nick Griffin may well have miscalculated.