First Past the Post

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UK General Election – the mood on the doorstep

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 pm, June 10th, 2024 - 12 comments

The UK still has the First Past the Post Electoral system. Something New Zealand should have absolutely no nostalgia for. This means that, while the campaign is UK-wide, a lot of campaign activity is directed into constituencies that are deemed marginal. In marginal constituencies, a General Election brings a conveyor belt of the good and the great supporting their prospective parliamentary candidate. In “safe seats” voters get much less attention.

British politics – hurry up and wait for a general election

Written By: - Date published: 4:58 am, May 21st, 2024 - 16 comments

While I do not pick elections, I think it is safe to make this point. If Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party are holding on for a dramatic change in polling numbers, they are unlikely to see this happen. On current polling, even a 7% swing in their favour would not be enough to stop them from losing the election. Labour should not be complacent, but it is increasingly obvious that the voter coalition that helped the Conservatives win in 2019 has collapsed.

Understanding the New Zealand General Election 2023: Historical trends and perspectives.

Written By: - Date published: 6:01 am, September 20th, 2023 - 15 comments

From the outside, the New Zealand 2023 General Election seems both lacklustre and slightly strange. The Labour Government, having won a huge majority in 2020 is now fighting for its political life. Yet National, the main centre-right opposition party is still on average polling significantly worse now than they were when it lost power in 2017.

UK Labour – can they finally beat the Tories?

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, January 30th, 2023 - 18 comments

The left in the UK needs to accept they alone do not have majority support and need to work with what they term the “soft left” and more centrist factions to win. The current Labour leadership need to ensure that the left still has a stake in Labour winning, and give enough to motivate the left to vote and campaign for Labour. Look at the lessons learnt by the US Democrats.

What the recent elections tell us about British society

Written By: - Date published: 11:31 pm, May 17th, 2021 - 35 comments

Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s Blog In a nation that has suffered over 100,000 COVID-19 deaths, one may be somewhat taken aback to see the latest YouGov Poll where The Conservative Party enjoy a 15% lead over the Labour Opposition. 17 months after the Conservatives won the 2019 General Election, it would be easy to […]

Trump loses the presidency, but Trumpism lives on

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 am, November 19th, 2020 - 8 comments

The reality is that the United States is a poor example of a functioning democracy in 2020.

Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government: Style over substance or a guiding light for progressive politics?

Written By: - Date published: 8:42 am, August 10th, 2020 - 33 comments

Critics have dismissed the Jacinda Ardern government as being one of style over substance. This is unfair given the challenges this government has faced and the policy achievements it has had. However, it is a government that has much work to do if it wins a second term. And its over-reliance on Jacinda as party leader is a huge strategic risk, especially when the governments front bench is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be lightweight.

Why UK Labour lost? Part 2: UK Labour’s Strange loyalty to First Past the Post.

Written By: - Date published: 2:56 am, January 13th, 2020 - 13 comments

Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s Blog

The folly of electoral pacts

Written By: - Date published: 2:15 am, November 30th, 2019 - 2 comments

Originally posted  Nick Kelly’s blog One feature of the UK election has been various electoral alliances or deals done. This has mostly occurred around the issue of Brexit. Early on in the campaign I wrote about Trump’s intervention in the UK election, specifically him calling on The Brexit Party and The Conservatives to do a deal. […]

The UK General Election

Written By: - Date published: 8:07 am, November 4th, 2019 - 10 comments

 

Nick Kelly is a form NZ trade unionist and NZ Labour activist. He is a co director of Piko Consulting, and currently lives in London expanding Piko into the UK. The below was originally published on Nick Kelly’s blog

 

 

We have a Government

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 pm, October 19th, 2017 - 26 comments

NZ First have chosen to support Labour to form the next government of NZ and have secured a coalition deal. The Greens are in the process of making a decision about a Confidence and Supply deal before they make an announcement. Matthew Whitehead writes about what the options are and how Confidence and Supply agreements can work.

Today is a win-win with Winston

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, October 19th, 2017 - 103 comments

It appears that Winston is about to announce the decision of the NZ First party about their coalition partner today. For those who seem to think that coalitions should be formed with rapidity, they simply shouldn’t. That is the path to making stupid decisions, and I am yet to hear a single good reason to do it.

First Past the Post nostalgia

Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, October 12th, 2017 - 33 comments

A timely reminder that we replaced FPP for very good reasons.

By-elections are FPP

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 pm, March 28th, 2015 - 25 comments

Paddy Gower and Duncan Garner don’t understand our electoral system: “that’s MMP”. By-elections are pure First Past the Post – and that’s why Andrew Little didn’t need to do a deal, and Northland doesn’t stink like Epsom.

NRT: MMP, electorates, and misaligned incentives

Written By: - Date published: 3:18 pm, September 22nd, 2014 - 165 comments

No Right Turn points out the underlying truth of voting in an MMP environment. For the party electorate seats don’t matter much. Running electorate only campaigns are not productive. He is wrong in ascribing them no value. They provide a base for campaigning.

Polity: Armstrong on Labour, turnout, MMP

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, July 15th, 2014 - 28 comments

Over the weekend John Armstrong had a column about youth voter turnout in the upcoming election. Much of the material was familiar – young people don’t vote so much – nobody talks their language, yo! – parties are Trying Very Hard, but they are also old fuddy-duddies – and so on. He then blamed much of it on a perceived trend toward centrist politics under MPP. But runs directly-if-casually contrary to at least two large research programmes in political science.

Polity: Boundary changes

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 pm, April 18th, 2014 - 20 comments

Rob Salmond’s take on the boundary changes announced last week. In a MMP election system the actual electoral boundaries usually only really matter to a few MPs. It isn’t likely to make much of a difference unless National manages to have a cup of tea with a party with enough electoral muscle to get more than a single MP into the house and an electorate’s voters think this matters. After the John Banks/Act debacle who’d be moronic enough to think that electorate seats in a list do matter? Apart from our silly first-past-the-post stand-in-man for David Farrar of course…

Vote for MMP, anything else is just crazy

Written By: - Date published: 6:51 am, November 24th, 2011 - 40 comments

I see that the Nats in drag anti-MMP campaign have brought space on our banner. Now I know the mood of the authors on this subject.  They’d like MMP with tweaks – which will happen in 2014.

I looked at the anti’s pathetic ad, and decided that it was more effective to take their money, counter it (like the Standards enhanced logo?) and comment on it.

MMP rules, FPP/SM drools

Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, June 29th, 2011 - 49 comments

Times that the Government had the support of the majority of voters under FPP from formation of Reform (beginning on multi-party system) in 1911: 7 out of 27 (26%)

Times that the Government has had the support of the majority of voters under MMP: 4 out of 5 (80%)

Shirtcliffe’s anti-MMP campaign launches

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, June 28th, 2011 - 112 comments

Peter Shirtcliffe’s latest attempt to destroy MMP has finally launched. The man who spent a million dollars in 1993 is a shadow of his former self. Now, he and his cronies are so despised he can’t front the organisation himself, he’s got some kid doing it. And FPP/SM is so despised they won’t actually campaign for it overtly.

Conservative majority in Canada

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 pm, May 3rd, 2011 - 29 comments

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have won majority government in the Canadian election with under 40% of the vote on a turnout of just over 58%. We will be able to get an idea of what a second term John Key government would be like as Harper is cut from the same cloth as Key and Cameron. […]

Friday Afternoon Fun: The Problem with FPP

Written By: - Date published: 4:58 pm, March 11th, 2011 - 25 comments

In the UK they have a referendum in May as to whether to keep First Past the Post, or move to Australian-style Preferential Voting (or as they call it “Alternative Vote”).  Here’s a quirky explanation of the problems with FPP using members of the animal kingdom.

Super City Picks

Written By: - Date published: 1:46 pm, September 26th, 2010 - 18 comments

Matt McCarten’s website for who to pick for a progressive Super City is finally up.  If you’re in Auckland and haven’t voted yet – make sure to have a look.

Help the Campaign for MMP, they’re Internet illiterates

Written By: - Date published: 12:11 am, May 9th, 2010 - 53 comments

One thing that the election in Britain brought home to me, was how much I’m grateful for having Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) representation here. I didn’t start that way. Over time, I’ve grown to appreciate the gradual progress and stability offered by MMP. However the people at the Campaign for MMP could do with a little help in the Internet age. They’re operating like it was 1993.

Colin James on Labour’s election record

Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, February 1st, 2010 - 3 comments

Dancr linked to Colin James’ piece in the Press the other day, in which he writes: Here’s Labour’s record for the five decades years since the end of 1959: in government 19 years, out of government 31 years. Its best five decades were 1929-79, when it had 20 years in government, its worst just 12 […]

Why National really hates proportional electoral systems

Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, November 5th, 2009 - 25 comments

These data, taken from the Elections NZ site, show election results since National’s inception up until the last First Past the Post (FPP) election in 1993. I think they show fairly clearly why National is so keen to dump our proportional electoral system in favour of FPP or its drag cousin Supplementary Member (SM), which […]

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