john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on May 11, 2018 11:28:26 GMT
This election has a strange look to it with the victorious opposition being led by the 92 year old former Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, who has pledged to hand over, within two years, to his former Deputy Anwar Ibrahim who is currently in jail on trumped up sodomy charges. Those charges were first brought when Mahathir was prime minister after he sacked Anwar.
Anwar has been in and out of jail for many years and has won appeals only to be re-convicted whenever he looked a threat to the (former) ruling Barisan Nasional. The first acts of the new government will be to put through a Royal Pardon for Anwar.
The defeated ruling alliance is centre-right and largely represents the interests of the majority Bumiputera population (ethnic Malays and indigenous people). The biggest element was UMNO (Bumiputera) along with the Malay Chinese Association(MCI) and the Malay Indian Congress (MIC). This alliance helped secure in dependence under Tunku Abdul Rahman and has ruled ever since until this year. The government pursued a policy of positive discrimination in favour of the Bumiputera. As a result the whole state apparatus is staffed by ethnic Malays who also get priority for University education.
Meanwhile the business sector is dominated by ethic Chinese. With the Chinese and Indian population turning increasingly away from the MCI and the MIC towards the opposition centre left. This leads to a paradoxical situation where the Bumiptera who dominate the state sector largely voting for the centre right while the Chinese who make up most of the business sector largely vote centre left.
The Pakatan Harapan coalition is something of a ragbag of four former opposition parties:
The Democratic Action Party which came out of the ashes of the Peoples Action Party (who have ruled Singapore since independence). They are centre left and broadly social democratic with a lot of support from the Chinese community.
The Peoples Justice Party of Anwar Ibrahim who are centrists and have support in the large cities and urban areas and push a anti-corruption agenda and wish to end the ethnic approach to poverty eradication.
The National Trust Party, formerly the Malay Workers Party, who can be best described as progressive Islamists.
Malaysian United Indigenous Party led by Mahathir Mohamad.
It will be interesting to see how this all works out in practice!
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on May 10, 2018 0:53:58 GMT
If I could extend this to Ward names, I have an example of a very misleading name from Stockport MB.
This is the Davenport and Cale Green Ward. The main problem being that it does not include Davenport Village or Davenport Station which are in Stepping Hill Ward. It appear to include most of Cale Green along with Shaw Heath and some areas which I always considered to be Heaviley.
The bulk of the Ward would best be described as Adswood. It appears to include the whole of the former Adswood Ward from the old Stockport CB and also a sizeable chunk of the (different) former Cheadle & Gatley UDC Ward of Adswood.
The name is rather confusing. Had it been called Adswood everyone would know where it was. The two separate bit of Adswood make up the biggest share of the area and electorate for the Ward. Adswood and Cale Green would be an acceptable alternative. The reason for the name Davenport is almost certainly down to snobbery. People probably prefer not to be in Adswood and, as a name, Davenport sounds much posher. Only problem is that it is inaccurate.
If there is clamour to have a Davenport Ward, this could be used for the name of the current Stepping Hill Ward. Stepping Hill always conjours up images of a rather grim hospital. The Ward does include most of Davenport including the Village and the Station as well as Davenport Park Road.
Manor Ward is another that I would prefer to see named Heaviley or Little Moor.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on May 8, 2018 13:09:19 GMT
Does the branch select from the shortlist or is it all up to the NEC? I think the branches don't have any role. It's entirely self-nomination to the NEC. The CLP does get to vote on which candidate on the shortlist should be selected. What happens if the Constituency does not like any of the shortlist imposed on them?
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on May 5, 2018 16:11:48 GMT
A Labour lead of only 3% in London (44-41) would be a considerable surprise. I smell shite!
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on May 3, 2018 21:18:41 GMT
The Armalite and the Ballot Box?
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on May 3, 2018 13:07:47 GMT
Deliberately allowing continued malapportionment of constituencies, especially with such ridiculous disparities, can be considered a form of gerrymandering. Just ask the people of Queensland, Australia. The point is that gerrymandering is next to impossible to legislate against while malapportionment can be stopped by use of a maximum range for different constituency/division sizes. For many years, the UK had some malapportionment issues as urban areas tended to lose population (and electorate) while suburban and some rural areas showed increases. That tended to favour Labour which was the predominant urban party. Hence Labour 'won' the February 1974 election with fewer votes to the Conservatives. Earlier elections favoured the Conservatives because of the tendency of Labour to pile up huge majorities in certain seats. The Conservatives got an overall majority in the 1951 election despite having 200,000 votes fewer than Labour. Neither of those factors applies to that extent now. Gerrymandering usually involves having constituencies of ridiculous shapes to either concentrate support for one party in a seat to ensure success or to spread support between two or more seats to win them all. It all depends on the situation on the ground. The term gerrymander was coined after the Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, devised a map in which one division resembled a salamander. I suspect that the Malaysian government would employ either tactic to stay in power.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on May 2, 2018 23:42:44 GMT
Sorry to nitpick, but having constituencies of vastly different sizes is nothing to do with gerrymandering. That is called malapportionment. Gerrymandered constituencies are often meticulously distributed in terms of size of electorate.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Apr 28, 2018 9:03:40 GMT
The reason he ran in South Hams is that you got enhanced redundancy from the House of Commons if you lost your seat in the election and it didn't matter if it was different to your existing constituency. Frank Hooley did much the same after being deselected in Sheffield Heeley. He contested Stratford-upon-Avon to secure his redundancy payments.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Apr 25, 2018 8:50:52 GMT
Given the big lead in registered Republican votes cast over Democrats, this is a very worryimg result for the Repbulicans. It suggests that the big majority of Imdependents and a nkt insignifjcant chunk of Republicans voted Democrat. I really didn't see it being this close, thinking pushing the Republican lead down to 10% would have been a blow for the GOP. This District was noted as a hotbed of support for Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It is a retirement area for white voters. It was carried by MItt Romney 62% to 37%.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Apr 18, 2018 18:38:48 GMT
Shall I go dig up his thoughts O’mara regarding age as an excuse? Shall I? 😁 Jared O’Mara demanded a gay pianist be sodomised with his own piano. There’s no comparison. Was it a Grand or an Upright? Ooh err missus!
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Apr 14, 2018 21:55:15 GMT
Illegal moose hunting? Cue Lord Rockingham’s Eleven: Hoots mon there’s a moose loose around this hoose. .....
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Apr 12, 2018 14:37:42 GMT
I can add the following Wards from Tameside MDC wich were UDCs before reorganisation:
Mossley Duckinfield Audenshaw Longendale
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Apr 11, 2018 12:39:36 GMT
Trafford has an Urmston ward, and was formed itself partly from Urmston Urban District. Are there any other former districts/boroughs whose name is now only that of a ward? Cheadle and Gatley Ward on Stockport MDC.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Apr 9, 2018 22:27:10 GMT
The difference for me between IDS and Howard is that the latter came over, maybe unfairly, as part of the nasty squad, while IDS was rightly perceived as incompetent.
Both were losers even against a shopnsoiled Blair.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Apr 9, 2018 0:51:04 GMT
What are the chances of a Saffron Walden by-election now? With burglar-killing in the news again, we can be reminded of one of the more colourful by-election candidates, Oliver Smedley, who contested the last Saffron Walden by-election in 1977 on an 'All Party Anti Common Market' ticket. He had previously been Liberal candidate for the same constituency against Rab Butler in 1950 and 1951. During the intervening quarter-century the Liberals had largely shed free-marketeers such as Smedley, while Smedley had stood trial for manslaughter in 1966 after blasting a business rival with a shotgun. A jury acquitted him in less than a minute, after hearing that the victim had barged into Smedley's house and attacked him. What a bizarre post. Has the MP for Saffron Waldron killed a burglar. If so I think we should be told.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Mar 25, 2018 0:13:58 GMT
Houses met for the first time yesterday After some turmoils, a M5S, Lega and FI agreement has been reached for the Speakers who have been elected today Camera: Roberto Fico (5 Stars) Senate: Elisabetta Alberti Casellati (Forza Italia) Now that is one unholy alliance!
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Mar 21, 2018 20:14:34 GMT
According to Wikipedia they formally merged into the Tories in 1968, having been a vassal party since 1947 with merged constituency associations. Despite this, the electoral description survived a few more years, with [Sir] John Nott continuing to be "National Liberal and Conservative" on the ballot paper into the 1980s, though nobody was in any doubt that he was the Tory candidate. Gwilym Lloyd George was also a National Liberal and Conservative MP for Newcastle North from 1951 to 1957. He had been a Conservative supporting Independent Liberal for Pembrokeshire until 1950 when he lost he seat to serial defector Desmond Donnelly. Donnelly was a member of four political parties starting with the left wing Commonwealth Party then Bevanite Labour, them his own right wing Democrat Party and finally a Conservative. Lloyd George’s move from the Liberals to the Conservatives was mirrored by his sister Megan who shifted in the opposite direction. She lost her Anglesey seat to Cledwyn Hughes and then joined Labour and was MP for Carmarthen. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em! That symbolised what was happening to the Liberal Party from the 1940s to the 1950s. Gwilym Lloyd George was Home Secretary from 1954 to 1957 and became notorious in refusing to commute the death sentence on Ruth Ellis.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
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Post by john07 on Mar 21, 2018 7:08:07 GMT
Yeah - Hezza was one of a number of younger Conservative candidates who stood for a joint association under the locally used label but saw it completely as a historic relic and never thought of themselves as anything but Conservatives. The story goes that Ian Gilmour was selected to fight the 1962 Central Norfolk by-election and only subsequently discovered from the papers that he was a "Conservative and Liberal" candidate. He set about changing the association name to Conservative in two stages (first to "Conservative and National Liberal" and then, after being elected, to "Conservative"). John Nott, the last National Liberal MP to enter the Commons, similarly saw himself as a Conservative whose association happened to have that ancestry though was one of the few cases of a new MP not ditching the name immediately. How long did the National Liberal Party exist as an organised party? I recall reading about the infamous ‘Architect’ John Poulson getting himself elected to the National Committee of the Party in order to gain influence among Conservative controlled Councils. He also signed up Reggie Maudling on to his payroll. He used T Dan Smith and Andrew Cunningham to sort out the Labour Councils.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Mar 10, 2018 20:31:21 GMT
This ward sounds like something out of an Oscar Wilde play. The Lib Dem candidate seems to be doing his best to fit in to that milieu. I was thinking that.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,637
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Post by john07 on Mar 10, 2018 20:25:10 GMT
Cheshire East DC Bunbury WardConservative sitting as Independent resigned4 candidates:Chris Green(Con)Mark Peregrine Ireland Jones (Lib Dem)Jake Lomax (Lab)Mark Sharkey (Green)2011 election results: Con 1173, Lab 480 2015 election results: Con 1864, Lab 470, Green 320 This ward sounds like something out of an Oscar Wilde play.
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