Will Labour back PR?

Britain in a Changing Europe held an interesting webinar yesterday on the recent elections with contributions by Sir John Curtice, Rob Ford, Spectator political editor James Forsyth, and Paula Surridge.

One topic that came up was whether Labour would move to advocating PR.  Labour was characterised as too weak to win, but too strong to fail like other European social democratic parties.  

It was thought that Labour could not win an overall majority, given Scotland, but could form a minority government with Scottish Nationalist, Plaid Cymru, Liberal Democrat, SDLP, Alliance and Green tacit support.

No one would enter into a coalition with the current Conservatives and even the Democratic Unionists were unlikely to countenance a new confidence and supply agreement.

Labour was likely to pile up big majorities in metropolitan areas which were of little use in overall terms.  PR might therefore seem attractive, although the attitude of the trade unions would be crucial.  In the longer term, PR could damage Labour as left leaning voters would feel more able to support the Greens than in the binary politics produced by first past the post.

As always, much depends on the form of PR adopted.   

The end of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act

A review of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act and my thoughts on its replacement: https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/knowledgecentre/society/politics/fixed_term_parliament_act

Leadership election in Northern Ireland

 An authoritative guide to the DUP election by Northern Ireland politics expert Jonathan Tonge: https://theconversation.com/dup-leadership-election-qanda-all-you-need-to-know-as-edwin-poots-and-jeffrey-donaldson-160670

With such an exclusive election there could even be a tie, but there is no procedure to deal with that.

Thoughts on lobbying

A short summary on some of my reflections on lobbying, having studied interest groups for some fifty years: http://www.culmerraphael.eu/news/lobbying-uk/

First thoughts on election results

Some are saying on Twitter that it is a surprise that voters opted for 'change' in Hartlepool in the form of a Conservative candidate given that the Conservatives have been in office since 2010.

However, I do not think that voters perceive the Johnson Government as another Conservative Government, but as a clear break with the past with a very distinctive leader.

One thing I think is clear that Labour's attempt to create a 'Tory sleaze' narrative has not cut through with the electorate.   There are a number of reasons for this.  First, it is remote from the immediate concerns of voters.  Second, Boris Johnson being a bit of a rogue is already priced in with many voters.  Third, many voters think that all the parties are as bad as one another when it comes to being on the make.

And some voters think the prime minister is entitled to decent curtains.   There is an argument for saying that the prime minister is now underpaid given his responsibilities or at least is entitled to more expenses.

How farmers voted on Brexit

A lot of myths have grown up about how farmers voted in the referendum on leaving the EU.  Based on a self-selected Farmers Weekly survey, or simply on anecdotal evidence about posters on countryside hoardings, a view has developed that farmers voted overwhelmingly for Brexit.

Up to now we have lacked any hard evidence, but that has been rectified by a survey of farmers reported in the Journal of Rural Studies by Daniel May and his colleagues.

The headline finding is that farmer voting was not greatly out of line with the electorate as a whole.  50 per cent reported voting leave, 45 per cent remain and 5 per cent did not vote.  This implies a higher turnout than the population as a whole, although some who did not vote claim that they did in surveys.

There was a slight tendency for women farmers to be more likely to vote remain.  However, the strongest predictor of voting behaviour was level of education.  60 per cent of those with GCSE or equivalent voted to leave compared with 20 per cent of those with postgraduate education (admittedly a small N).

Dairy farmers voted leave by 58 per cent to 38 per cent and pig and poultry farmers had a 53 per cent to  34 per cent leave lead.  Pig and poultry farmers received relatively little from the CAP and dairy farmers may have seen themselves as tightly regulated by it.

There were some regional differences.   Farmers in Scotland deviated from the trend there with 67 per cent voting leave (51 per cent in Wales).  Farmers in the east and south of the country were more likely to vote remain, but in part this reflected national voting trends.

The 'bring back control' theme seems to have resonated with farmers in terms of their personal perceptions.   Farmers who state that they face too many restrictions imposed by the EU including those on agrochemicals were more likely to vote leave.   For some EU regulations were seen as preventing them making higher profits or having more market power.   Voting for Brexit is perceived as delivering more control over their businesses.

The natural party of business?

I would like to recommend an excellent article I commissioned for Political Quarterly on Labour's economic policy.  Unfortunately, it is only free online for a fortnight: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.12963

It was interesting that in PMQs on Wednesday most of Keir Starmer's questions were in relation to impacts of government policy on business.  Given current tensions between the Conservatives and business, particularly over Brexit, this was part of an effort to show that Labour can be a business friendly party.  It may be recalled that one of Tony Blair's ambitions was to make Labour 'the natural party of business' as well as 'the natural party of government'.

Keir Starmer is encountering choppy waters.  He has boosted Labour's poll ratings by nine per cent by not being Jeremy Corbyn and being competent.   However, that is not enough to pull ahead of the Conservatives, particularly given Labour's weakness in Scotland.

He does across as rather wooden and Boris Johnson's jibes about reading from a brief hit home.

It might be asked why the electorate are not more annoyed with the Government for errors made in handling the pandemic.  First, it is evident that the electorate are prepared to cut them some slack as it was a difficult and unprecedented situation to deal with for which the preparation had focused on the wrong target (a 'flu pandemic).   They are not convinced that an alternative decision-maker would have done much better (although Labour's comments about 'inconsistent messaging' may gain traction).

Second, they consider (with some justification) that the government machine in general might be deficient for handling this situation - not unreasonable given the tendency of central government to operate in 'silos' and a reluctance to let decisions be taken at a local level where there is often more immediately relevant expertise.

Some home truths about the strength of the Conservatives here from Ben Jackson: https://politicalquarterly.blog/2021/02/05/any-illusions-about-the-conservatives-being-swept-from-office-should-be-abandoned-now/