A Tale of two Elections (or is that three?)
Busy week for democracy in Britain and France this last week. In France it was the climax of the Presidential elections with the second round election, while in Britain there were the local, Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament elections. So an interesting week all round then.
In English local elections, my reaction is generally meh, Greens made a couple of small gains, but apart from that it was very much a story of Labour of getting pummelled (yay!), but seeing as this was mainly at the Tories gain, it was hardly a cause for unbridled celebration. But then if you share Jim Hacker's (Yes Prime Minister), view that local government is just a load of jumped-up corrupt windbags, then I don't suppose it matters. I would of course would never be so cynical. ;-)
The Welsh elections were slightly better(even if the Greens won nothing), Labour again lost seats, but seeing as there is a form of PR in Wales and more parties, this did not result in automatic gains for the Tories. Now Labour have to try and hammer out a coalition deal, but the Lib Dems don't seem quite as keen to play ball. Well some of them aren't, there's dissent in the ranks it seems! So while they are tearing themselves apart, one is left to wonder, would a Plaid-Labour coalition happen? Would be interesting if it did, seeing as there appears to be a tribal hatred between the two camps. I would go as far as to say it would make for very entertaining politics if it did, I'd give it about two months.
The Scottish elections are probably the most fascinating, the result is pretty much a dead heat between the two big parties (SNP 47 and Labour 46) and the two smaller parties (tories 17, Libs 16). The maths has made it almost impossible to form any kind of coalition, with two parties at any rate, (unless SNP and Labour got together, which I think is about as likely as Satan ice-skating to work). I favoured a SNP-LibDem-Green coalition myself, which would have just produced a majority of one. But the Libs being like they are, have put the kibosh on that one, so looks like we'll have a wobbly SNP-minority government, or another election, which in light of the absolute electoral farce in Scotland, wouldn't be such a bad idea!
The Welsh elections were slightly better(even if the Greens won nothing), Labour again lost seats, but seeing as there is a form of PR in Wales and more parties, this did not result in automatic gains for the Tories. Now Labour have to try and hammer out a coalition deal, but the Lib Dems don't seem quite as keen to play ball. Well some of them aren't, there's dissent in the ranks it seems! So while they are tearing themselves apart, one is left to wonder, would a Plaid-Labour coalition happen? Would be interesting if it did, seeing as there appears to be a tribal hatred between the two camps. I would go as far as to say it would make for very entertaining politics if it did, I'd give it about two months.
The Scottish elections are probably the most fascinating, the result is pretty much a dead heat between the two big parties (SNP 47 and Labour 46) and the two smaller parties (tories 17, Libs 16). The maths has made it almost impossible to form any kind of coalition, with two parties at any rate, (unless SNP and Labour got together, which I think is about as likely as Satan ice-skating to work). I favoured a SNP-LibDem-Green coalition myself, which would have just produced a majority of one. But the Libs being like they are, have put the kibosh on that one, so looks like we'll have a wobbly SNP-minority government, or another election, which in light of the absolute electoral farce in Scotland, wouldn't be such a bad idea!
posted by Julien at 22:53
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