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Post by Lord Twaddleford on Oct 19, 2017 13:54:36 GMT
So, who won New Zealand's recent general election?
The National Party emerged as the largest group in the NZ parliament with 56 seats, but recent news reports are saying that it'll be NZ Labour (46 seats) who'll be heading a ministry.
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Post by jigger on Oct 19, 2017 14:10:28 GMT
So, who won New Zealand's recent general election? The National Party emerged as the largest group in the NZ parliament with 56 seats, but recent news reports are saying that it'll be NZ Labour (46 seats) who'll be heading a ministry. The former, as they won the most votes and the most seats. The purpose of the election was to elect Members of the House of Representatives, not to form a Government. There is a very important constitutional difference between the election of Members of the House of Representatives and the formation of the Government. A Government is formed by the Governor-General, acting on behalf of and in the name of Her Majesty, appointing Ministers of the Crown and in constitutional terms, she need not have any regard at all, in appointing Ministers of the Crown, to the party-political breakdown of the membership of the House of Representatives, nor must there be an election before the party-political complexion of the Government may change. |
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Post by woollyliberal on Oct 20, 2017 10:49:43 GMT
Winning a general election more or less comes down to who gets to be PM. If the 2nd and 3rd largest parties in a hung parliament get to form the government, they have won the right to enact legislation. That the largest party got more votes is irrelevant due to the electoral system. Just ask Hilary Clinton.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2017 12:04:25 GMT
So, who won New Zealand's recent general election? The National Party emerged as the largest group in the NZ parliament with 56 seats, but recent news reports are saying that it'll be NZ Labour (46 seats) who'll be heading a ministry. Winston Peters. |
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thetop
Labour
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Post by thetop on Oct 22, 2017 0:34:08 GMT
It's not a reductionist argument. I've not said that either the Clegg surge of 2010 or Labour's 2017 campaigns weren't achievements - they were both considerable achievements in the circumstances - but they weren't wins. This is a thread about the definition of winning. I'm pointing out that high vote shares don't automatically equate to winning. You're still making a nonsensical comparison between an election where the Lib Dems more or less stood still (Clegg surge? 1% - Miliband gained more than that and his performance was seen rightly as a disappointment), and would've needed millions of extra votes to be competitive to that of a Labour performance where they got the highest increase in their vote since WW2 and was in the 100Ks off winning the popular vote. All because: 'didn't win'. It's reductionist to absurdity. You've certainly implied it wasn't an achievement ("nothing to write home about") - and you even go on to further imply it in your next paragraph. Before 2005 Blair delivered three successive GE wins and before 2005 the Tories delivered four GE wins in a row, both on lower vote shares than Corbyn. Those were achievements if you like. You are confusing outputs with outcomes. Of course the output is significant and has implications for the likely result of the next GE but it still isn't a win. Feed your current poll figures into UNS calculators and you still aren't looking at a win - you either need good targeting (Scotland's your best bet) or you need to push your vote share north of 46%. No, I just hold vote totals in equal if not greater worth to the whims of seat totals under our terrible voting system. The output certainly is significant but not to be viewed to the exclusion of all else. Many of those GE wins were essentially gifted by FPTP by divided/spent oppositional forces. Now both governing and opposition parties are competive you'll struggle to gain those types of victories - I'm well aware of that and don't recall ever contesting that? And of course no LDs would have sniffed about a 10% increase in vote share in 2010 since it would have put us on 33% and if taken equally from Con and Lab they would have been on 31% and 24% respectively. FPTP would probably still have been a fix leaving us in third place for seats (and I daresay Jigger would have said the result showed the deep affection of the British people for the Labour and Conservative parties) so I daresay we'd have had to go into coalition but we'd have had an unanswerable case for PR. You already had a strong case for PR, but great job dancing around my actual point - if you'd gained enough, near exclusively from Labour, that you were now the opposition force on 32% (+10% on 2005) but crucially 4% off the Tories and that delivered the Tories a majority, you'd be saying "nothing to write home about, Clegg", "didn't win"? Would you fuck. But as usual the standard response from Red or Blue to anyone questioning their right to rule forever is to sit back on the massive financial advantages they have, the structural media bias in favour of those two parties, and the benefits of FPTP and say "nerr nerr ne nerr, we got more votes than the Liberals." Er, you making a dishonest comparison, with "ner, ner didn't win" to Labour's 2017 GE result was what prompted this exchange. If you'd bothered to actually read my posts I've long sought a multi-party landscape under PR. I'd also have to laugh at the suggestion Corbyn's Labour benefited from any structural media bias. PS I don't know what your first sentence is supposed to mean. In 2010 the LD vote share went up by 1%. I said we had a modest increase in vote share. I'm not sure what exactly your problem is with that. Your claim that "it was [y]our equivalent of Labour 2017"? |
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thetop
Labour
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Post by thetop on Oct 22, 2017 1:18:40 GMT
I don't think Steve Radford was ever in with a shout of becoming Prime Minister, in 2010 or at any other time. Meh, either/or.  |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Oct 22, 2017 10:40:45 GMT
thetop: I think you are being overly defensive about a simple comparison.The question asked was: did the LDs win in 2010 since we got into government? My answer was "no, it was like Labour 2017 - good campaign but not a win." The idea that this was some sort slur against Labour is only in your mind, though I'm sorry if I gave that impression. It really isn't absurd or reductionist to hold on to the basic point that winning means getting a majority. It is what the thread is about, and the main interest of Clegg 2010 is that he got into government - a thing that conventional wisdom saw as a virtual impossibility for the LDs, I recall Sandy Toskvig mocking the very idea on News Quiz during the campaign - but it still wasn't a win in my book; and the main interest of Corbyn 2017 is that he fought a remarkable campaign, almost certainly destroying Theresa May as a political force and shifting the political consensus to the left - also impossible according to conventional wisdom - but he still didn't win. That's what matters here, not quibbles about the size of the swing. The other parallel worth considering is that what you do next matters most, as the fate of the LDs post-2010 illustrates - if it was a victory it was very badly exploited. On the issue of structural bias to Labour in the media, the fact that it bemuses you just shows how used to the advantage you are, and why you are able to dismiss the idea of LDs hypothetically celebrating a second place in the popular vote. In the press Labour has the guaranteed support of the Guardian and the Mirror, who will never, ever, support the Tories; the worst you can expect is that the former might flirt with the LDs or Greens. The Tories can rely on the Telegraph and probably the Times; also, in all normal circumstances, the Sun and the Mail (thought they were more neutral during Blair.) UKIP can pretty much rely on the Express and for their agenda to be pushed in the Mail, Sun and maybe Telegraph. The SNP has had significant support in Scottish media including the Scottish edition of the Sun. But we and the Greens live off scraps in the Guardian, occasionally the Times, and the Independent - now on-line only and pretty much Labour supporting. TV and radio work on the "balance" principle, which means that except (for a very limited extent) during elections all subjects are covered by inviting one Tory and one Labour representative. The nature of parliament - with an official paid opposition - strengthens that since the media can only report what is in front of them when it comes to the Parliamentary skirmishes. Theoretically social media is open territory but we operate in an environment where everyone has grown up with the two-party bias in MSM with inevitable knock-on effect. If you think that doesn't give your party a massive structural benefit vs LDs and Greens then you should try it some time; in your case you have to cope with virulent attacks from a partisan Tory press, but we have to bust a gut to get anyone to report us at all.
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Foggy
Non-Aligned
Long may it rain
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Post by Foggy on Oct 22, 2017 16:53:08 GMT
I don't think Steve Radford was ever in with a shout of becoming Prime Minister, in 2010 or at any other time. Meh, either/or. The Liberal Party is a registered political party distinct from the Liberal Democrats. The terms Union Jack and Union Flag are essentialy interchangeable unless referring to a specific copy of the flag, as @benjl kindly explained when I was too tired to do so. |
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