The clouds in last night’s silver lining

With results from parish, borough and AV voting now declared, the guest writer today continues the autopsy on Labour's performance in local elections. The guest writer today is Atul Hatwal, associate editor of Labour Uncut.

As Ed Miliband surveys the results after his first major test as leader he will have mixed emotions. Great in England, good in Wales, bad in Scotland and rapidly forgotten on AV.

A curate’s egg, whatever one of those might be.

While the dynamics of devolved government mean the results in Scotland and Wales are driven by regional factors, and AV is done for a generation at least, it’s the English local elections where the tea leaves for the next general election can be best read.

England is where Labour needs to win the key seats, and its England where Labour has proportionately lost most voters since 1997. Ostensibly, the results give a sound basis for hope.

Not quite street party territory, but at least a couple of glasses of sherry.

On this happy path, the numbers of new Labour councillors elected take Labour back to respectable mid-2000s levels of representation in local government. Gains in a single election on this scale have not been seen since the mid-1990s.

This is not to be lightly dismissed. Revival in local government is an essential pre-requisite for national success.

Then there’s the overall vote share. While not spectacular, it was much improved over the election last year and progress at this rate would lead to a solid Labour majority at the next general election.

But still, there’s doubt.

Can a national result be extrapolated from local elections? Is this really a foundation for victory built by winning back Labour sceptics? Or a house of cards made from passing protest votes?

A few months ago in this column, I highlighted Labour’s poll challenge by looking at three specific questions asked intermittently by YouGov in their daily and weekly polls, and tracked their responses over the previous three months. These questions examined voters’ attitudes to the defining issues for the next general election.

The updated results to Labour’s poll challenge hold the key to interpreting last nights mixed election results.

The three YouGov questions look below topline voting intentions to reveal how voters feel the government is hitting them in the wallet, their view of how the government is cutting the deficit and who they prefer as a leader – David Cameron or Ed Miliband.

The public’s answers over this year have involved responses from tens of thousands of people and give a clear view of the scale of the problem.To misquote William Cobbett, I defy you to agitate a man on a full wallet. The higher the wallet line, the better things are for the government. Because it focuses on peoples’ perceptions of their own financial future it gives quite a different response to doom and gloom about the general economic state of the country.

The wallet line has remained largely constant this year. In January, 74% of people didn’t view the coming year as posing a major financial drama. In April this had risen a little to 75%.

In key Labour battlegrounds such as London and the Midlands, there are the early rumblings of actual optimism. The latest figures show that well over 40% think the worst is over and that the situation will either get better next year or at least stay the same.

That’s three-quarters of Britain thinking that things aren’t actually so bad and almost half of the public in key English regions, rich with key seats, thinking things can only get better.

This doesn’t suggest an electoral situation ripe for people to reverse their vote from the general election last year.

But, while worry about personal finances is often a driver of change, it is not sufficient alone. Winning the economic argument is what is needed, and can make the difference on its own.

This is what the middle band on the graph tests. The deficit is the defining economic issue of the day and the public’s attitude to how the government goes about cutting it will be a key determinant in how people vote at the general election.

The results here for Labour are worst of all.

On this central economic argument, Labour has not only failed to make ground, it has fallen further behind. At the start of the year, the majority who felt the way the government was cutting the deficit was necessary compared to unnecessary was 17%. In April, this had grown to 28%.

Well over 50% of the public consistently believe that the government approach to cutting the deficit is necessary.

And voters remain in no doubt as to who to blame for these cuts.

In January, 41% of voters blamed the last Labour government for the cuts, compared to 25% blaming the current government and 24% blaming both. In April, it was virtually the same. 41% blamed the last Labour government, 25% the current government and 23% both.

The public’s basic position is that Labour is responsible for the deficit and the government’s cuts are necessary. If anything, people are becoming more, not less, convinced of it over time.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of economic policy, purely in political terms this is a huge problem. From the mid-1980s through to 1992, Labour made an economically cogent but politically suicidal case for higher taxation.

The deficit is this decade’s tax.

Ed Balls is a big beast who knows how to take the fight to the Tories. He’s added vigour and aggression to Labour’s attack on the economy. But when he became shadow chancellor, he set himself the measure of putting Labour “on the front foot” on the economy.

Three months into his tenure, beyond the rough and tumble of day to day debate on the economy where Labour’s performance has improved significantly, the party is now more distant than ever from being trusted on this defining economic question.

Perceptions of Labour as a realistic government in waiting are further undercut by the leader gap.

At the start of January, Cameron’s lead over Miliband as peoples’ preference for PM was 12%. By the end of April, this had been pegged back slightly to 10%.

While this measure is going in the right direction, the level of reduction in Cameron’s lead begs the question – why so little?

Miliband’s press operation has been much sharper since the appointment of Tom Baldwin and Bob Roberts at the start of the year, he has been getting the better of Cameron at prime minister’s questions on an increasingly regular basis and the government has gifted Labour a conveyor belt of gaffes and U-turns.

Forests, defence, the NHS, schools, universities – virtually no corner of public policy has been left without a government crisis entirely of its own making.

If, after all that, Cameron still has a double digit lead among voters as the preferred PM, its hard to think what will shift the numbers decisively.

Looking at the three elements of the graph in the round, the overall picture is not a pleasant one for Labour.

It describes an electorate for whom the personal financial salience of the cuts is limited. Where Labour is seen as the cause of the problem and opponents of the solution. And where leadership is something only Cameron can provide.

In this context, the happy path that starts with these English election results ultimately leads back to the general election of 1992, or maybe even 1987.

The reality is that yesterday’s result in England was a blind trail of protest votes. People aren’t enamoured of this government, and showed it. But the local elections weren’t a choice between Labour and Conservative; they were a chance to vent at the government.

Based on the underlying factors picked-up by the wallet line, the argument gap and the leader gap, any pressure on Labour in a real election and the poll lead will collapse. Unless Labour can shift these key drivers, future mid-term victories or upturns in the headline polls will just be more false hope.

The sad truth is, one year on from the start of the Tory-led coalition, Labour’s journey has taken it back to square one.

Last chance for the "nothing" referendum

According to news reports the AV referendum debate is set to escalate as we move to within 48-hours of polling. Well, quite honestly something needed to happen because as lacklustre political issues go, this one arguably takes the cake.

Apparently Paul Boateng will call for Chris Huhne to resign because he has argued has expressed anger in recent days over the way the No lobby - a cross-party group which shares some financial backers with the Conservatives - has conducted its campaign. Well now, that’s going to happen, isn’t it. I mean, a minister who is a member of a party that hasn’t been in office of any kind since 1915 is naturally going to relinquish that power.

The “Yes” campaign have been little better. In a platform that will be shared by that great political luminary, Eddie Izzard and Lord Paddy Ashdown, they will claim that politicians with safe seats under the current First Past The Post system earn more money from second jobs and that reform would force MPs to spend more time working for their constituents.

How naïve do these people think we are? Do they truly believe what they are saying? Because if they do then I am very worried. The reality is far more likely that whichever system is adopted, it will little difference to the work output of many MPs. The facts of the matter are that many MPs, of all political persuasions, work very hard for their constituents and work long hours in the service of the people who voted them into office.

Of course there are exceptions and we regularly hear examples of how some of our elected representatives fail to attend Westminster regularly. Gordon Brown and David Miliband have been less than regular faces over the past few months, but I very much doubt AV would have forced them into the chamber. In fact, the evidence would indicate their majorities would be slightly larger under this mongrelised version of proportional representation so, using the “Yes” analysis they would be even less likely to turn up.

The hard reality is that the referendum has failed to engage the hearts and minds of voters. Like many activists I have been spending the last three weeks knocking on doors and many voters are not even aware a referendum is even taking place. With only two full days of campaigning left, both camps are desperate to engage with voters and get their supporters to the polling station.

Unfortunately, when the votes are finally cast and counted it is more than likely the poll will be less than 50% of the electorate – leaving it open for both sides to argue the conclusion is not a full representation of the people’s will.

Far from finally solving the problem of whether or not the UK will adopt AV, the referendum is likely to create more questions than answers.

Why the Coalition is safe - A response to Sunny Hundal

Over the last couple of weeks we have started to see signs that all is not well in the Coalition between the Lib Dems and the Tories – or is it? Nick Clegg says he is angry with David Cameron and the Tories over the issue of social mobility and Chris Huhne has been blowing off steam about the way his Tory friends in the “No to AV” campaign have lied about the referendum.

Even the media have been caught by this apparent ‘new’ hostility between the partners and led Jackie Ashley at the Guardian and Tim Montgomerie at ConHome to speculate there may be an early election. According to Sunny Hundal over at ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ this is highly unlikely but it could have other consequences.

In Hundal's analysis the honeymoon is over and a degree of Coalition trust has been broken. They’ve also called each other ‘liars’ at the highest level – so the bar has been set higher. Also he argues the Tory betrayal over electoral reform may push more die-hard Libdems into the arms of Labour if they keep that promise in their manifesto.

But there isn’t going to be an election and this apparent war between the Lib Dems and the Tories is an entirely cosmetic exercise to make us ‘see’ there are differences between the two parties. Why? Because in case we have all missed it there are local government elections on May 5th and the Lib Dems are scared stiff they are going to get massacred.

This scares the pants off Clegg but doesn’t really affect Citizen Dave because he is hoping the Lib Dems loss could be his gain – and if he can show on May 7th that his party has held its own then it will silence a number of critics. Is this price the Lib Dems will have to pay for lying down with a snake, sooner or later you get bitten.

On top of this the Tories may have signed a Coalition Agreement, but they will still try and wreck anything they don’t like with complete shamelessness. So far this has included education and local cuts. In the future this is also likely to include the NHS (where they will press ahead and ignore the Lib Dems), the environment (despite Chris Huhne’s best efforts) and of course electoral reform.

But have no fear because all these splits will not be enough to break the coalition and on May 7th we can expect Clegg and Cameron to walk hand in hand back into the Cabinet Room to plan more anti-working class measures.

Sunny Hundal believes the Coalition will become “paralysed by civil war.”, he is wrong. Once the AV referendum and the local council elections are over the supposed rifts will suddenly heal and we will once again see the two parties united.

It is easy to see why. The Lib Dems are nothing more than the left wing of the Tory party. They sit comfortably on the same benches and can fairly comfortably nod in agreement over most policies. Essentially there is very little to pick and choose between them. This is the very reason why they must be annihilated on May 5th.
Working people have the chance to voice their full opposition to both the Lib Dems and Tory policies by voting conclusively for Labour candidates. In some wards the incumbent has been an independent, but look carefully at their voting record and in most cases you will see a Tory in disguise. It is time to push them aside and built a firm and effective opposition to this Tory led government. If Labour can dominate local elections this year and the County elections next then it could substantially slow down Tory cuts to local services.

We have a wonderful opportunity to stop this government in its tracks – I hope we use the chance wisely.

A good reason to vote "Yes"

According to research undertaken by ippr the alternative vote system would not hand undue influence to the BNP. Their study looked at results in all constituencies if the last election had been run under AV. Researchers at the think-tank ran a series of tests on two different facets of the claim by those who oppose the move to AV that the BNP would be able to "pick a winner". IPPR looked at whether there could be a mass transfer of BNP supporters' votes pushing one candidate over the 50% threshold, and that BNP voters' second preferences could overturn a favourite and help someone placed second or even third to come first. The research comes as both the “No” and “Yes” campaigns mark the four-week countdown to the AV referendum. The “No” campaign have previously aired concerns that a change in the voting system would boost minority parties, with their campaign director, Matthew Elliott, saying recently AV would "[give] BNP supporters more power at the ballot box". In an AV system, voters rank candidates instead of voting only for their chosen one. If no single candidate has secured 50% of the vote immediately, the candidate who has received fewest first preference votes is eliminated and the second preferences of their voters are redistributed to other candidates. The “No” campaign fears the second preferences of those eliminated – likely to be those who back minority parties – could go on to have profound effects further down the reallocation process. They have published a list of 35 seats in which the BNP's share of the vote was greater than the winner's margin of victory. Now researchers have looked at this assertion in two ways. They show there to be 56 seats where the share of the BNP vote exceeds the gap between the first-placed candidate and the 50% threshold they need to cross and where, if all BNP supporters transferred their second preferences as a bloc, it could help the lead candidate win. They then showed that the 2010 British election survey – which asked 13,356 people to take part in a mock election run under their AV system – found the number of seats where the second preference of those voting BNP push a winning candidate over the 50% threshold fell to 25. However, the IPPR researchers demonstrated that in all 25 seats the second preferences of the BNP are not "decisive" and the second preferences of others just as critical. They explain that in the 25, the first-placed candidate is within "spitting distance" of the finishing line and the average gap between the first and second placed candidate is 24.52%, which they say is "larger than the share of the vote of any third-placed candidate whose votes would be needed to change the result". "In other words there is no chance that BNP second preference votes could alter the outcome in any of these seats. In all of them the winner on first preferences will be the winner once votes have been reallocated in subsequent rounds irrespective of the role played by BNP votes." The IPPR researchers also dissected the idea that BNP voters could change the balance of power in constituencies by pushing a second or third place candidate into first place and over the 50% threshold on the back of its transferred votes. Results from the 2010 election show that there is not one constituency where the BNP vote share is larger than the margin between 50% and that received by the runner-up. Their researchers say: "Given the marginality and distance from 50% for both the first and second placed candidates it is true that BNP supporters' second or third preferences will be counted in the 35 seats listed by the 'No to AV' campaign. "However, the BNP vote is still very small in each of these seats, averaging a vote share of just 4.5% – yet the average distance from 50% for the winning candidate is 11.3% and 14.2% for the runner-up. Even if we assume all BNP preferences go to a single candidate (which they wouldn't) they would still require more than twice the number of BNP supporters to win under AV. BNP voters cannot therefore single-handedly change a result." The IPPR details some high profile cases: Barking The IPPR said: “The constituency [in] which the BNP has its highest proportion in vote share, it is a clear safe seat for Labour achieving over 50% of all votes and very unlikely requiring the need for 2nd preferences. All additional party votes summed – including the Liberal Democrats – would not be enough to elect the Conservative runner-up”. Morley and Outwood IPPR argued: "The BNP additional vote preferences would be counted but as the race is highly marginal – both winner and runner-up maintaining votes shares in the mid-30s – the race will be decided by the 16.76% Liberal Democrat supporters whose second preferences are more likely to go to Labour than the Conservatives." Burnley On this constituency ippr argued: "The race is between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The BNP additional vote preferences will likely be counted but the 16.61% of Conservative voters will be the decisive group who strongly favour the Liberal Democrats over Labour thus, likely retaining the seat in Liberal Democrat hands". The “No” campaign maintain that BNP voters will still have undue influence in any AV election compared with those who vote for one of the three main parties. Recent research by them showed that if the 2010 general election had been run under AV, in 70% of seats those who backed the three main parties would have been unlikely to get a second vote. Launching that research, Matthew Elliott said that in some constituencies supporters of the BNP would have had their preferences counted six times before a winner was declared. All of which assumes that those second, third, fourth and fifth preferences would go to other extremist parties. The reality is the far right are extremely sectarian and many BNP voters would rather vote Labour or Conservative than put their second vote with an NF candidate. Given this, there seems little to worry about regarding the distribution of BNP supporter second preferences. With a few weeks to go the “No” campaign has been insipid and fundamentally dishonest. They have so failed to answer the claims made by the “Yes” campaign that a move to AV would produce a fairer electoral system. This blog has been reluctant to support the “Yes” campaign because of my passionate belief that the correct voting system would have been the Single Transferrable Vote STV). This is not going to happen, so we must make full use of the opportunity to dump the defunct First Passed The Post system and change it to a more democratic approach that allows voters the opportunity to elect members of parliament who more fully represent the views of the majority. Given the options, the Alternative Vote is the only way forward and I would urge readers to vote “Yes” on May 5th

Who cares about AV

Now I confess I have a very low boredom threshold. I seldom watch TV and last night, whilst millions enjoyed watching Comic Relief, I read, listened to music, played a little myself and painted. Not that I am anti the idea of giving money to charity, I’m not. I just don’t see why I have to endure the idea of watching people who aren’t funny and endure them making fools of themselves for hours .
I admit it, as the years go on, I have become a grumpy old man. One of my pet hates on the blogosphere at the moment is all the fuss being made about AV. Those who are ‘for’ it keep trying to tell me it will save the planet, restore justice to the oppressed, feed the hungry and bring a new level of democracy to our voting system.

On the other hand, the “no” lobby insist any change from FPTP will bring instability, economic and political chaos and the emergence of Beelzebub and the Hordes of the Night.

Call me cynical, but I don’t think either side is really telling me the way it is. In fact, the way I see it is that if we had been allowed to vote AV in the last election, we would have still had a Tory/ Lib Dem coalition, except the Conservatives would have had a few less seats. As for previous elections, well the evidence from what I have read has tended to lean a little more favourably towards Labour, but not by any huge amount.

So, it seems they want us to vote on an election system where one option (FPTP) will result in the election of Candidate A and the other system (AV) will bring the election of Candidate A. If that’s the case,, why bother to change it?

The whole thing just seems like one big joke – with no real choice being offered in the first place. It’s not even as if the population are chomping at the bit and saying they want change. Sure, the Lib Dems have been spouting on about it for years, but until they came to power, they were all in favour of AV. Since Citizen Dave gave a couple of them seats around the Cabinet table they have watered down their views so much, its hard to spot which one of them isn’t a Tory. Gone are all the ideals of true electoral reform and instead they call for a wishy washy voting system that marginally favours their own politics.

The pro-lobby are probably hoping that holding the referendum on May 5th will help their cause, because people will be voting in local council elections at the same time. But let’s not forget that, on average, only about 40% of voters turn out on Election Day. So, whatever the result, it isn’t going to offer a true representation of the “people’s will” anyway.

Not that this will stop either side when the result is declared. If the “Yes” lobby win they will hail it as a positive result for democracy and if “No’s” succeed, they will argue their campaign has been vindicated – this is even though as many as two-thirds of the electorate may not vote.

The whole thing is boring and let’s faces it, pretty meaningless. The end product will largely be the same whatever the result and will put back the real opportunity for true electoral for a generation. Courtesy of Clegg selling out the people will not have the opportunity to consider the Single Transferrable Vote – the one option that could have changed the face of British politics.As it is, Clegg wants us to keep the same corrupt system, or replace it with a mechanism that will guarantee votes for extreme parties will be far more status than they deserve.

No wonder Cameron gets on so well with him.

So, on referendum day which way will I vote? Well in an ideal world, I wouldn’t, but the facts of the matter are that I will go to the polling station to vote against my local Tory councillors. As a result the election officials will almost certainly give me a voting slip for the referendum. Now, I have never spoiled a ballot paper in my life – it always seems a total waste of time. So, I will have to choose – and neither of them appeal to me.

I guess in the end I will probably go along with AV, but not because I like it. I don’t, but I like FPTP even less. I have spent large chunks of my life calling for electoral reform and have been an advocate of STV for over 40 years. To have it taken away from me by a fellow supporter of the system (Nick Clegg) is an unforgivable act of treachery.

I hope history rewards him appropriately with the argument that he was probably one of the weakest leaders the Liberal/ Social Democratic movement have seen since the days of the Whigs.

If the Lib Dems have any sense of self-respect they will dump him and the other quislings in the Tory Cabinet at the earliest opportunity

Will the AV vote be a non-event?

This post was written by Reuben Bard-Rosenberg

In a couple of months we will be taking a vote on the most basic aspect of our democracy – the way in which we elect our government. Yet one could be forgiven, over the past few days, for forgetting that such politically important matters were at stake. First we had the much trumpeted revelation from the no to AV campaign that reform will cost £250 million (!).

The figures themselves were rather suspect, but regardless of that many rightly considered the whole argument to be ridiculous. As one person tweeted “egyptians abandon revolution, decide democracy is too expensive.” The idea that we should keep the same undemocratic voting system the same simply to save a a figure that amounts to less than 0.05 % of annual government spending, is pretty hard to sensibly defend.

At the same time, supporters of AV are also stoically resisting the urge to focus on any important political principals. The headline statement from Nick Clegg yesterday was that FPTP allowed MP’s to abuse the expenses system.

”When a person is corrupt, they should be punished” Clegg said. “When a system makes corruption more likely, it should be changed.”

If there were an offline equivalent to Godwin’s Law, it would almost certainly refer to the tendency of all politicians to invoke The Expenses Scandal. Though last year’s revelations were distasteful, they hardly demonstrated a level of corruption sufficient materially effect our public services or a form of corruption that would imperil our democracy (i.e. bribes for votes).

In the cold light of day the issue seems miniscule compared with mass unemployment, the possible double-dip recession on our door step, or indeed the real democratic deficit inherent in first past the post. Yet expenses have become a kind of lowest common denominator argument that commentators can use in place of politics.

Indeed the idea of democracy has been curiously absent in the campaign for AV. The term barely appears on the website of major pro-av pressure group Take Back Parliament, who instead have chosen the amorphous slogan of “yes to fairer votes” (as though the already vague concept of fairness hasn’t been stretched beyond recognition by the rhetoric of the current government).

This watered down contest might, in part, reflect the political class’ low opinion of the people. Yet more fundamentally, it reflects the nature of the proposals that we are voting on. Unlike the great constitutional reforms of the 19th and early 20th century, and in contrast to proportional representation, there has never been any desire outside parliament for the Alternative Vote.
The proposals emerged almost wholly from the Westminster village. And this is because they do not represent the application of an clear principles to our political system.

A system that equates the first preferences of some with the least objectionable options of others, and which – on a fairly arbitrary basis – counts the second preferences of some but not others, cannot, unproblematically, wrap itself in the flag of democracy.

Equally the temptation to see AV as a stepping stone to a genuinely proportional system is misplaced. As Andy Newman explains, the AV system is best seen as a variant of of First Past the Post. As Jim Jepps, of the Daily Maybe put it to me, one of the underlying principles of Proportional Representation is that minority opinions ought to be represented in parliament. AV in fact does the polar opposite, ensuring that nobody can be represented unless they win over 50% support in a given constituency.

Indeed, it is difficult to see what great criteria AV meets, aside from introducing a bias towards moderates – who are most likely to be people’s least bad option – and therefore making the electoral system more amenable to the Lib Dems. At the same time, FPTP, a residue of the pre-democratic age, remains fairly indefensible in contemporary political language.

So expect to see more of the rubbish, more arguments about how much money reform will cost more references to the expenses scandal, more shallow and patronising rhetoric about how “tribal” and dinosaur-like the opponents of AV are. But just remember, it’s not because the people are stupid. It’s because the proposals before us fundamentally miss the point.