Happy New (General Election) Year!
On this day in 1973, the UK joined the European Community, along with Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. On January 1, 2002, Euro coins and banknotes became legal tender in twelve of the European Union’s member states.
It’s a quarter of a century since Britain’s first mobile phone call was made. In a seemingly random intersection of the Fates, comedian Ernie Wise was calling from St Katherine’s Dock to a room above a Newbury curry house – the then office of a little company called Vodafone.
2 Interesting Stories
Is a Labour-Tory coalition unthinkable? Only until you think about it
Martin Kettle muses in the Guardian on a hung Parliament:
It seems innocent to assume that either Labour or the Tories would automatically turn first to the Liberal Democrats in those circumstances – or that the Lib Dems would necessarily deliver. The big parties could calculate that they would be better off in a marriage of convenience with a historic enemy they respected, from which they could withdraw with dignity when the moment was right, rather than to embark on a more permanent entanglement with a Lib Dem party which at bottom they each despise.
The more one looks at the evolutionary dynamics of British politics, the more serious the grand coalition option may one day become. Is a Labour-Conservative deal really unthinkable? Only until you start thinking about it.
At least the next government won’t be decided on the toss of a coin… or will it?
Coin tossing through the ages
The Telegraph has an interesting history, including this:
Some elections have been decided by the toss of a coin when no candidate has secured a majority. In May 2007, Conservative Christopher Underwood-Frost only held on by winning on the toss of a coin after he tied with his Lib Dem rival on 781 votes for the Lincolnshire seat.
2 Must-Read Blog Posts
What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that caught my eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:
- Dip Me in Gaiety and Throw Me To the Creationists
- Hey! Minister! Leave them kids alone!
Alex Wilcock’s last-minute entry for blog post title of 2009 snatches the trophy and raises it aloft whilst whisking readers through Darwin, Gladstone, Queen Victoria, faith schools, Twitter, Dr Who, university interviews, creationism and coming out. Phew! And Alex calls Gladstone a polymath…
Sara Bedford doing what she does best: taking high-blown theory and nailing it down to ordinary people’s experiences.
Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.
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5 Comments
The election in question was local not parliamentary
Indeed it was – 781 votes for an MP would be pretty dismal…
Here’s a New Year’s Day aside…going only so gently off-topic:
Matchsticks (who gets the shortest), straws (likewise), or, a flip of the coin, is permitted by Returning Officers when he declares a draw as an option to avoid a recount. If you dont like it, you can insist on a) a bundle count, or, b) a full recount. With my own council election, I tied with the then leader of the Conservative Group, who was about to become Council Chairman of a District Council in Sussex. We were about to toss a coin when a second box, which had not been opened, was found behind the curtains on the village hall stage…when that was counted, the Lady With the Big Hat flounced off in disgust, and slammed the village hall doors really hard….and in doing so, successfully delivered an “up yours” as the Yale lock jammed. Knives, credit cards, brute force, nothing could get the doors to open. Desperate measures call for a desperate response: However, pressing the fire alarm bell at 4 in the morning took ages to get a response.
When the fire brigade finally came, the Returning Officer asked the rhetorical question we were had all been quitely fuming…. “What the hell kept you?”
The answer was “twits are pushing the fire alarms far too often to be taken seriously.” With that unusual induction-ceremony, I was now a councillor….
And was immediately appointed to the Fire Brigade Committee.
Wasn’t it Crawley a couple of years back where a coin toss decided the result of a seat and, with it, control of the council?
Well, what exactly did this German coalition achieve? Seems to me as though they actually fared quite badly. Which is why both parties in it suffered, leading to more sharply defined parties outside the big tent picking up votes & the formation of a more ideologically slanted cabinet.