Changing England’s borders
One of the main reasons there are so many people in favour of separate parliaments for Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland is that England is dominating the UK so heavily.
Just look at the pie chart on the right – England constituted 84% of the UK’s population in 2001.
I therefore decided to investigate some ways of fixing the English problem by changing England’s borders. I’ve mainly used the English Regions for the following maps and figures.
My first idea was to extend Scotland (adding Cumbria and the North-East) and Wales (adding Cornwall and the rest of the South-West), bringing both up to about eight million inhabitants.
It’s nowhere near enough, though – England is still more than big enough to run the show undisturbed.
To make this approach work, I guess Scotland would have to be extended all the way down to the Humber, and Wales would have to encompass the West Midlands, but that would completely undermine the Scottishness of Scotland and the Welshness of Wales.
My second idea was to split England into East and West along a line extending down from the Pennines, but that isn’t enough, either: East England would be able to run the show on their own (but only just – moving a few counties such as Hampshire from East to West would take the East down under 50%).
One might also argue that Cumbria is much more similar to Northumberland than to Somerset, so it might not be a very natural split.
I also wonder whether London would dominate the East so strongly that the genuine needs of the peripheral areas would be completely overlooked.
Another option would be to create a Greater London by merging London with the East and South East of England. This would actually work fairly well – although Greater London would be a lot less populous than the Rest of England, it would probably be able to hold its own given the way London dominates the whole of the UK.
This might also be a very good way for the remainder of England to build up a identity separate from London, perhaps centred around Manchester or Birmingham.
Finally, I tried to recreate the Danelaw. This would actually balance the two halves of England very neatly and would from a mathematical point of view be the best solution. However, it would place London on the border (just south of it, to be precise), and I’m not sure whether that’d be a good or a bad thing.
From the point of view of Danelaw, its economy would be hugely influenced by London (and many people would be commuting from Danelaw into London), but it wouldn’t have any influence on over it.
From the point of view of non-Danelaw England (Wessex?), it would completely dominated by London, although it would be in periphery.
The effect of the new government in Scotland
If I haven’t blogged very much about the new UK government, it’s mainly because it’s so hard to blog about from a Scottish perspective.
Most of the interesting things they do don’t apply to Scotland, and you can only blog so much about their deficit reduction plan.
I’ve found two good articles about this.
The first one is by Iain Macwhirter:
[F]rom a Scottish perspective it’s hard to pass much of a judgment on the performance of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition so far because, in terms of domestic policy at least, it’s almost completely passed Scotland by. Of the many initiatives that have been launched by the coalition in its first 100 days, very few actually apply here, apart from the deficit reduction programme and that hasn’t been implemented yet.
The second one appeared in the Caledonian Mercury, and it describes well how radical the new government is in England:
England is embracing the free market, a smaller state and weaker local authorities and Scotland is sticking with what it’s got – comprehensive education, a totally state-run health service and powerful councils.
…
So, if all this is happening in England, where does this leave Scotland? The blunt answer is: in a mess. Scotland is going to get the cuts but without the reforms. It is going to see swathes of public servants thrown out of work but without anything new structurally to take their place.
Although it might not have been the coalition’s intention, I think it’s becoming abundantly clear why Scotland needs full independence, or at the very least full economic autonomy. The alternative is the abolishment of Scottish devolution, and that wouldn’t go down very well north of the border!
Nobody will stand up for Scotland abroad
Joan McAlpine has an important point about the al-Megrahi affair (hat-tip: SNP Tactical Voting), namely that both the UK and the US are saying Scotland’s government were wrong to release him, but there’s nobody on the international stage to fight Scotland’s corner:
Since foreign affairs are not devolved to Edinburgh, David Cameron officially speaks for us. On this occasion he trashed us in front of the world. Where were we? We should have had a right to reply at least. After all, Scottish troops are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, as they did in Iraq, to support America. Would Obama and Cameron have condemned a friendly, independent sovereign nation like this?
Even those who disagreed with the decision to free al-Megrahi should agree that this situation is untenable – the US government should be discussing this issue with Alex Salmond, not with David Cameron, and only independence will resolve this issue.
Political honeymoon
YouGov have measured the popularity of the new government (PDF here).
The overall approval rating of 60% (vs. 33% disapproval) is perhaps not great.
However, what I find astonishing is that it seems to be popular in the entire country:
- Both sexes (men 62%, women 57%)
- All ages (18-34 61%, 35-54 56%, 55+ 61%)
- Both social grade bands (ABC1 65%, C2DE 53%)
- All countries/regions (Scotland 58%, London 55%, South of England 70%, Midlands/Wales 58%, North of England 49% [vs. 44% against])
In fact, the only group against the government is Labour voters, who naturally enough disapprove (25% for, 68% against).
Both Tories and LibDems approve (by 87% and 69%, respectively).
I dare say this is very positive.
I’m sure a Tory-only government wouldn’t have been that popular in Scotland, for instance.
Hopefully the new government will make good use of its honeymoon with the voters!
The LibDems have a duty to make it work
I’ve already argued that the LibDems made a huge error when they decided not to explore the possibility of a coalition with SNP in the Scottish Parliament and with Plaid and the Tories in the Welsh Assembly:
This is ridiculous! If they want to work only with Labour, why don’t they join Labour?
The same now applies in Westminster.
The LibDems keep saying that proportional representation is needed, and this will of course lead to many more coalition governments.
Because of this, the LibDems have a duty to demonstrate that coalitions can work.
To be concrete, they should do their very best to try and form a coalition with the Conservatives.
This is probably the only realistic option, given that Labour don’t have a majority together with the LibDems.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying they should enter a coalition with the Tories no matter what the terms are.
The important thing is that a coalition is explored thoroughly, and if it fails, it has to be because the Conservatives wouldn’t agree to reasonable terms, not because it’s easier to stand on the sidelines.
Con 298, LD 108, Lab 212
Filed under: Cons, England, Lab, Lib, SNP, Scotland, election, psephology
Most of the last polls before tomorrow’s election are now out, and they seem to point to a result along the lines of Con 33-37, LD 26-29, Lab 24-28.
There’s also a Scottish poll predicting Con 17, LD 22, Lab 37, SNP 21.
If I put the average of the figures into the Electoral Calculus Regional Predictor and shift LibDem support slightly towards the north of England, I end up with a seat prediction of Con 288, LD 98, Lab 232.
The Tories seem to be doing better in Lab-Con marginals, but this is to some extent cancelled out by the LibDems doing better in Con-Lib marginals.
Let’s therefore assume that Labour lose another 20 seats to the Conservatives, and that the LibDems win another 10 seats from the Tories, and we end up with my final prediction for tomorrow: Con 298, LD 108, Lab 212.
In many ways this would be an excellent result: The Tories would probably end up in power, but without being able to do whatever they fancy. Labour would have to find a new leader, and the LibDems would have demonstrated how bad the electoral system is if they got more votes but fewer seats than Labour.
Con 251, LD 181, Lab 177
I saw on UK Polling Report that Angus Reid is now reporting these figures: Con 32%, LD 32%, Lab 24%.
This is such a big gap between the LibDems and Labour that it made me wonder whether this could actually lead to Labour becoming the third party in the UK.
Using information about who is switching to the LibDems, namely that it’s mainly in the north of England, and not really in Scotland, I used the Electoral Calculus Regional Predictor and got these figures: Con 251, LD 181, Lab 177.
So it is possible! The LibDems have a realistic change of becoming the second party and shoving Labour away from the dispatch box.
Vote Match
Filed under: Denmark, Europe, Lib, SNP, Scotland, election, independence, referendum
In Denmark, websites that calculate which parties you agree the most with have been a regular feature of election campaigns for a decade.
However, they have been missing in the UK (to some extent because they make less sense under first-past-the-post), but now there’s finally one on The Telegraph’s site: Vote Match.
I tried it out, and it gave me roughly the results I expected (see the graph on the right).
The UKIP are much further up than I expected, and I had expected the LibDems and the SNP to be neck-and-neck, but then I do disagree with certain LibDem policies (such as Scottish independence and a referendum on EU membership).
Do try it out, and if you’re brave enough, publish your results in the comments section!
30 days to blog
I’ve been blogging for almost four years now, so I’ve had the chance to write about Scottish, Danish, European and local elections.
However, the previous general election happened æons ago, back in 2005, so today’s announcement that the next one will be on 6 May is a welcome opportunity to influence the composition of Westminster through blogging, too.
All the speeches made today were fairly predictable, so let’s kick off the election campaign with an old political broadcast starring John Cleese:
What to vote in East Renfrewshire
Filed under: Cons, Europe, Lab, Lib, SNP, Scotland, economics, election, environment
A few months ago, I gave some general advice on who to vote for in the General Election:
- If the LibDems have any chance of winning in your constituency, vote for them.
- If not, vote SNP/PC if they have a chance.
- If it’s down to Labour or the Conservatives, evaluate the local candidates and make your own choice.
It’s now time to have a closer look at the constituency I live in: East Renfrewshire.
Based on the last Westminster election in 2005, it would be easy to conclude that it’s a two-horse race between Labour and the Tories (Labour 43.9%, Cons 29.9%, Liberal Democrat 18.3%, SNP 6.8%).
It’s possible, though, that the SNP’s share of the vote was depressed by fielding a candidate called Osama less than four years after 9/11.
Also, the situation is more complex if one looks at the other elections that have taken place in the meantime.
Let’s start with the local elections in 2007 (1st graph on this page), which were conducted using STV (FPTP had been used in previous local elections).
The two largest parties were the Conservatives and Labour, with the SNP in third place. This is interesting, because it was a huge gain for the SNP: In 2003, the seat distribution (under FPTP) was Lab 8, Cons 7, LD 3, SNP 0.
At the same time, there were elections for the Scottish Parliament. These were conducted using the AMS system, which is basically FPTP with top-up seats.
The FPTP component was a two-horse race between Labour (35.8%) and the Conservatives (33.6%), with the SNP getting 18.9% and the LibDems only 8.5%.
However, the top-up votes probably showed more clearly people’s actual preferences, and this is shown in the second graph. Labour and the Tories were still the two largest parties, but the SNP were very close, and the LibDems did very poorly.
Similar patterns were seen at the European Elections in 2009, only this time the SNP actually overtook Labour (as seen in the third graph).
I would therefore conclude that East Renfrewshire is practically a three-horse race at the moment, with the Tories as the favourites to beat Labour, but where the SNP also have a fair chance of winning.
The LibDems, on the other hand, do not have a realistic chance of success in this seat.
Following my general advice, I must therefore recommend voting SNP in East Renfrewshire.
This recommendation is strengthened by examining the candidates:
- Jim Murphy is well-known as the current Secretary of State for Scotland, who seems to think it’s his job to quarrel with Alex Salmond rather than working with him to get the best possible deal for Scotland. He seems unlikely to stand up to Gordon Brown and help recreate an electable Labour party.
- The Tory candidate, Richard Cook, is commercial manager for Biffa Waste Services, and in his election leaflets he doesn’t provide a single positive reason to vote for him, only reasons not to vote for Jim Murphy. Also, he’s been a parliamentary candidate several times before, and he’s always been the loser.
- Gordon MacDonald, the LibDem candidate, holds important posts in (the Christian charity) and Care not Killing (an anti-euthanasia group), which seems a bit lopsided (although on the positive side he as a PhD in the Political Economy of Defence Procurement).
- The SNP’s Gordon Archer is managing director for Carbon Accountable (a company advising on how to combat climate change) and has in the past worked as senior advisor and spokesperson for John Swinney, so he should be strong on both environmental and general politics.