Elections

Bishops in da House: Lord help us

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 5 July 2010 - 12:22pm

Here's a bad argument about the reform of the House of Lords: "Does the 'Big Society' include bishops in the Lords?".

I don't want to be mean to Paul Woolley, director of Theos, whose argument it is, but it is pretty much identical to every other argument against full democratic reform of the Lords. It runs "democracy isn't just about electoral mandates, it's about [people I agree with] having a say over legislation".

Introducing TalkIssues

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 6 April 2010 - 3:24pm

After a few weeks of being too busy to blog, I'm very pleased to be able to introduce our new project, TalkIssues, which we're undertaking with Kevin Anderson, Suw Charman-Anderson and the FutureGov team.

TalkIssues is a blog, twitter tag, and all those modern social media things, designed to get people talking and thinking about the real issues behind the election, rather than the personalities and the horse race.

Patriot missive

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 28 February 2010 - 2:37pm

Ah, patriotism. Lovely, warm, crumpety patriotism. Old maids cycling to communion, England winning the World Cup. Who could possibly being against patriotism?

I could, particularly when it's used in discussions about politics, as David Cameron did this morning.

Here's my problem: using patriotism in politics is at best a meaningless soundbite, and at worst leads down some very dark alleys.

The bad manners of dissolving Parliament

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 25 February 2010 - 9:29am

Assuming the General Election in the UK is on 6 May, the election will be called on 12 April. The constitutional and ceremonial practice of calling an election involves the Great Seal of the Realm, royal proclamations and lots of other historical flummery. The political calculation, since the dissolution date is in the hands of the Prime Minister, is sharper.

Oscars switch from FPTP to AV - will it change the result?

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 24 February 2010 - 12:43pm

You know you're a real political geek when you care more about the voting method used to select the Oscars' best picture pick than you do about the films themselves. Yes, I am talking about myself.

Even so, I suggest that you read Hendrik Hertzberg's article on the topic in the New Yorker.

Draft Conservative Manifesto

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 4 January 2010 - 5:53pm
Happy New Election Year everybody. Today's big news story is the (fourth or fifth) first day of campaigning for the general election, likely to be held in May. I was particularly impressed by how the Conservatives are giving at least a veneer of crowdsourcing to their manifesto by inviting questions (this week on the NHS) and allowing people to vote on the ones which are put to David Cameron in a live webcast on Friday. It's not much, but it's a start.

Brighton's openish primary

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 11 November 2009 - 3:00pm
According to the local paper, the promised open primary in marginal Brighton Pavilion will require voters to turn up in person. Presumably put off by the high cost of the postal ballot used in Totnes, the Tories have hired a room in a seafront hotel, where (if you book in advance) residents of Pavilion constituency can turn up and choose between six potential candidates. Cost reasons aside, I'm a bit surprised that the Tories are turning down the free publicity they would get

Step outside the echo chamber

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 23 October 2009 - 1:33pm
There are a few pro-BNP commenters on Nick Robinsons Newslog, as well as on Have Your Say. Quite a few of them are complaining that the audience was unrepresentative because BNP supporters were 'hugely outnumbered' by anti-BNP voices. But let's get this into proportion. Six percent of people (and less than two percent of all voters) voted for the BNP in the Euro elections.

Here we go again

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 2 October 2009 - 3:41pm
It's the day of the second Lisbon Treaty referendum in Ireland, and polls suggest that the Irish people are going to vote yes on the second attempt, as they did with the Nice treaty a few years ago.

MyConservatives.com debuts

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 2 October 2009 - 6:55am
The new interactive site MyConservatives.com launches today. Dominic Campbell has a full write-up of it at PDF. It seems like the first version prioritises fundraising and campaigning (on user-defined issues), rather than discussion. An early test for them is whether they can get a critical mass of users (there are only 250k Tory party members, probably less, and the political branding will repel as well as attract). They also need to avoid the splintering that iCan saw into a million micro-campaigns.
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