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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […]
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.
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.
Written By: - Date published: 2:56 am, January 13th, 2020 - 13 comments
Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s Blog
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. […]
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
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.
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, October 12th, 2017 - 33 comments
A timely reminder that we replaced FPP for very good reasons.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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%)
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.
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. […]
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.
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.
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.
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 […]
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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