Conservative Leadership
*Announcement on Tuesday 6th December at 3.00pm*
The great Boris-Johnson.com debate on the Conservative leadership is still going strong! The most exhaustive, in depth, dynamic discussion of the battle for the toughest job in politics has now received over 600 comments – the blogosphere has never seen anything like this before!
But it’s not over yet! What do YOU think? The Boris Johnson office is listening! There’s still time to tell us…
Mac’s insight into the leadership race:
There’s a hush in HQ, (for we all know the name),
Of the one who came first in this race.
They were still neck and neck as they came round the bend,
But one of them fell off the pace.
There was lots of good money we bet on these two;
And each trainer was true to his yard.
First one then the other seemed to ease to the front;
Changing odds made the bookies work hard.
The punters were all of a dither;
But it seems now the race has been won,
One fell behind , and could not make lost ground,
And the race is all dusted and done.
We’ve waited so long for this moment;
The counting of votes took an age,
But now that we have a new leader.
A new act will take centre stage.
322 Comments
@ : I hope that the Party is not all at sea over the choice of future leader. You said that waves pick up momentum as they near the shore: that is because the water gets shallower, and if the public is so shallow as to let the sight of a,
(your words), handsome face decide the future of the Party, it is shallower than Southport beach.
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I am trying to keep an open mind about Cameron. Interesting that apart from Boris, very few people around here seem to be persuaded by him. As an observer, he appears to me to represent a big and unnecessary gamble on the part of the Tory party. What would be the chances of the man succeeding and actually putting Blair/Brown on the defensive? 50:50? Maybe considerably less?
It would be so much easier to let Clarke take over and then let Cameron work the TV studios and see how he got on.
Melissa: If there are going to be five candidates, then there will be three votes in the Commons, right? When an MP signs up to support a candidate, as Boris is supporting Cameron, what is the commitment? For the first vote? For all the votes? Or is the level of support an individual matter?
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Simon
Your suspicions are right. At conference Oliver Letwin made clear that although many MPs had declared support for a candidate, in no way did it indicate how they would actually vote on the day. They are all secret ballots
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Melissa: I suppose the next event is the first ballot, leading (presumably) to the elimination of Rifkind with the interest focussing on whether he subsequently endorses Clarke or Cameron (or neither).
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Ha! It’s already happened! Rifkind has endorsed Clarke.
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Simon
Am handing out an olive branch and will cease to be wavering in any way. Those on this thread know my views. I will continue to comment but now remain firm on my favourite as leader.
All this is secondary in importance to reserving a strong sense of loyalty for the person chosen as leader and supporting him wholeheartedly in every way as far as possible. And so, I submissively give in at this stage and let the winds of politics blow all around me without seeking to alter the course of the raging seas and tempests that may lie ahead. All good fun really!
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Melissa: Do you have a vote? I am still not sure how exactly this works.
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We do get a vote at some stage.
Next Tuesday the MPs knock one out and then another on Thursday. Then we – the members – get a vote on the two left.
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Melissa: Where do you vote? In your consituency party?
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We get a letter c/o our constituency party – correct
all fun!
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The contest is becoming difficult to read with Davis and Clarke losing ground to Fox and Cameron respectively.
I believe (or should I say hope?) that the Fox camp are hyping it up and his support is less than claimed. If not, then there is a danger than the two right-wingers (Davis and Fox) might make it through (goodbye Tory Party!).
Much depends on the first ‘eviction’. If Fox goes, then the centre/left are assured of one candidate. If Clarke (or Cameron, for that matter) goes, then the right have the choice of concentrating their vote on one candidate, or dividing it into two to try to close out the contest by excluding both centre/left candidates, thereby giving a real chance to Fox.
My wild and imprudent guess on the first ballot is:
Davis 60
Cameron 50
Clarke 47
Fox 42
Any other guesses?
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Come back Maggie Thatcher! Even at your age , you could sort this little farce out. Handbag the party into submission, amd make it see what is obvious to eveyone else. WE HAVE TO BE ELECTABLE IN ORDER THAT WE MIGHT BE ELECTED , and this is not the way to demonstrate that we are. As for guessing what an outcome such as Simon darkly prophesies ; it would probablky bring such dire negative consequences for the Party , that, not only will the Party in its present form not only shrink, ir might well disappear. I have, ( up to now), lost faith in the common sense of our MPs. The only way out now is for there to be an English Parliament, but even then , with this young inexperienced man at the wheel, it wopuld be doubtful if we could win even that battle.
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Macarnie: “The only way out now is for there to be an English Parliament, but even then, with this young inexperienced man at the wheel, it would be doubtful if we could win even that battle.”
As you know I am in favour of an English parliament, however, returning to the politics of here and now, if Clarke does lose out on the first vote – for lack of lobbying and promising or whatever – then the Tories are left with only three options.
Cameron would be the only one of the three that could offer any hope _at all_ of making the Conservative party once again a viable political player.
If I were Alastair Campbell, I’d be covertly promising (future) knighthoods/lordships etc. to Tory backbenchers voting for Fox, and the Lib Dems will be cracking open the champagne if the eventual winner is either him or Davis.
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286 comments, more than there are Conservative voters in the UK, and still no sign of any leader worth listening to.
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Simon, to follow your lead, here is my guess on the ballot: (given that there are nearly 200 MPs)
D D one quarter of votes
D C close to a quarter of votes
K C also close to a quarter of votes
L F well under a quarter of votes
the next round could see a large drop for D D
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Dear Boris,
Hip Hop News has a story about the legal battle between Chicago’s R Kelly and New York’s Cam’ron over the rights to a tune they produced with a third rapper, Big Tigga. I know that you were almost overcome by the urge to breakdance at Blackpool, after having been there every other year since 1997, but I would counsel restraint. A musical form that seems to exist solely on the basis of lawyers, offensive album covers and murders by armed gangsters is inviting a reaction. At least The Beatles didn’t parade around with guns on the territory of rivals, though with Lennon having been slain and Harrison wounded by assailants who were insane, the survivors will still have to be vigilant. McCartney especially. I can’t imagine the mentally ill going after Ringo Starr- they’ve more sense of self-worth. Modern compassionate Conservatism might tip them over the edge, though.
You may need to be reminded of the issue. Cameron’s main claim to prominence is his Blackpool speech- as an MP of only four years’ standing, he obviously isn’t experienced enough to be leader, in fact his constituency has only just recovered from the effects of What The Butler Saw. We are told that Howard regards him with approval, and placed him as shadow Health Secretary to avoid Labour’s heavy-hitters. That he had a central role in the recent campaign, with its indecisive strategy and poor advertising, isn’t to his credit- I can’t believe that the Conservatives expect to gain momentum from Howard Flight and Ed Matts. However, and whatever the general opinion of drugs and dolphin tattoos, ‘The Speech’ was unquestionably his hour. So let’s judge him on that.
Cameron wants a civilised society which values the quality of life as well as financial success. However, his ‘excellent examples’ of urban regeneration, Newcastle/Gateshead, The Calls in Leeds and Brindley Place in Birmingham, contain at least one curiosity. Even the Newcastle Central Labour MP Jim Cousins, himself a former lecturer on town planning as well as the most acceptable local face of ASBO-Ritalin man, has doubts about Newcastle/Gateshead. You might have expected that a Conservative would stay clear of acclaiming a project so redolent of Labour quangocrats. The most valuable aspect of the Quayside development, the cleansing of the Tyne, was achieved by the local water authority’s sewer interceptor scheme, before privatisation, and maintained by severe penalties on polluters, otherwise the banks would stink of raw sewage like they used to. The other aspects are less inspiring- a wonderful journey into the use of government and Brussels grants to produce a larger law court, a new footbridge and a huge studio placed at the disposal of a London-based artist and his chum, who has a quantity of red-light surplus latex available. There is also a glass opera house, where J.G. Brown praised his ‘A Fish Called Cameron’ tax scheme. The rest of the development is undersized flats, exploiting the rise in land value, some restaurants and less than half-a-dozen offices, replacing empty office space a hundred yards upstream. Gateshead does have a scheme to use any further funding to create a centre of technical excellence, but years after the turn of the century this was still just a derelict site with a billboard on it. I’ve mentioned Newcastle’s Centre For Life in a previous post.
Boris, if the wonderful journey of modern compassionate Conservatism leads you into supporting quangocrat conference centres disguised as regional music hall, and second-hand modern art exhibitions, then disenchanted ex-Labour voters may not want to join you on it. They might want new jobs, and some scheme that could protect existing white-collar employment from Asian competition based on lower living standards and vastly improved telecommunications. They might also seek reassurance that all this Blair-praising from Howard and Cameron is not just a form of shelter-begging from some new menace of the international political scene. If this is in fact so, you could always ask your candidate for Finchley, Karl Andrew Mennear, if you need some guidance on how to operate in a hostile political environment- of a talented year, he was the only Oxford graduate. A considerable personal achievement given that Byers and Cousins were on the education committee, and Alan Campbell MP was teaching at the same school, though hardly enough to justify a parliamentary career.
Wellington had a boot named after him, and Gladstone a bag. What could we possibly name after Blair-Brown?
Best wishes on your Wyre Forest venture,
‘Anecdota’
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Anecdota: Latin? ‘Anecdota’ means ‘secret history’ rather than ‘anecdote’, right? Anyway I’m sure all kinds of insiders (journalists, researchers, ex-girlfriends etc.) are welcome here just as outsiders like myself are.
Regarding Cameron, I also wonder how he would perform under pressure. The technique (which it was) that he used at the party conference was a kind of bonding with his audience. It might work on television but I can’t see it being successful in the Commons.
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Melissa: I’m flattered your expert take on this is similar to mine.
Best case scenario: LF eliminated first round, DD eliminated second round, KC wins membership vote, but DC also gets respectable result.
Worst case scenario: KC eliminated first round, DC eliminated second round, LF wins membership vote.
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Dear Boris,
Edit: shadow Health Secretary should, of course, read shadow Education Secretary. Late night.
“One of these days Justinian, if he is a man, will depart this life: if he is Lord of the Demons, he will lay his life aside.
Then all who chance to be still living will know the truth.”
‘Anecdota’
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Anecdota: “One of these days, Justinian . . .”
Ah, yes, Procopius . . . the Anecdota . . . the Secret History. The Wikipedia article has been deleted. They need a new one.
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It will be interesting to see if there is a detectable tactical vote today.
Will some Davis supporters vote for Fox to try to get rid of Clarke? Will some Cameron people vote for Clarke to kick out Fox?
Is Clarke being absurdly optimistic in thinking he and Cameron can reach the last round?
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Am at my desk with a cup of tea trying to be as relaxed as possible about the impending 1st round result due in about half an hour.
My feeling is that the one who loses will be very upset but his spouse/partner will probably be very relieved. Such are the pressures on politicians.
All I know is that MPs are very maverick so expect to be surprised!
At 5.20pm approx the result will come through on Radio 4 – I will stay fixed to my desk till then and only after that prepare to go home.
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First ballot:
Davis 62
Cameron 56
Fox 42
Clarke 38
A sad day for Ken Clarke. Maybe some Davis supporters did vote for Fox, given that Davis was supposed to have 66.
So what happens now? Most of the Clarke votes will presumably go to Cameron who should have enough to be first or second in the next vote, but will he go to the party with Davis or Fox?
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Well, the die is cast. Now Ken’s out of the running, you have to elect David Cameron. I have a couple of hopes:
1. Ken Clarke will take the job that Cameron offers him (shadow Home Secretary?)
2. Once the election is over, everyone sits down, shuts up and gets on with it. Nobody needs the kind of internecine bickering that brought on the Hague/IDS debacles.
3. (OK, I lied about the couple) The authoritarian wing of the party needs to stop trying to interfere in people’s lives.
4. When the subject of Europe comes up, stop banging on about little Englander flag-waving keep the pound and don’t kowtow to the Frenchies kneejerk blather, and spend more time talking about how that statist authoritarian behemoth is inherently opposed to freedom.
When you make the average Englishman believe with every fibre of his body that he is more trustworthy than the government, and is better placed to spend his money than the government, and that when he sits in the pub thinking “somebody should do something about that” he gets up and does something, rather than looking towards Nanny, you’ve won.
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It felt like poor old Ken went to the gallows yesterday.
Still, we must look forward and avoid looking back at all costs.
Let’s now see how Fox fares – personally I like him as a character: very warm and bubbly
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@/Gracie: “It felt like poor old Ken went to the gallows yesterday.’
Can we send Ken Clarke a note from the B.J.com bloggers to say we all (well, most of us) supported him and we’re gutted he lost? (Maybe we should organize some flowers . . .)
“we must look forward and avoid looking back at all costs.”
I am a Cameron-sceptic but in the absence of Clarke I hope he wins.
I imagine Cameron will get about 90 votes tomorrow with Davis and Fox splitting the rest, each getting about 55. (I can’t see any reason for tactical voting at this point.)
The danger for the Tories is that the members may reverse the MPs’ vote and elect the surviving right-winger. If that happens the party are back in the situation they were in with IDS – plotting, back-stabbing, miscommunications, unrepresentative front bench and all.
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Sam: “[I hope . . . ] Ken Clarke will take the job that Cameron offers him (shadow Home Secretary?)”
I agree.
A Cameron/Clarke partnership would be the next best thing to a Clarke/Cameron one. (Cameron should also keep Michael Howard and Rifkind on board if he is elected.)
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Heard this evening that the general feeling amongst the cognoscenti is that Cameron will probably get so much of the vote that he cannot lose, no matter what the common members think. It is even proposed that he should take PM Question time next Wednesday. If it has to be, amen, but that would also be the end to my personal unanswered prayer.
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Why didn’t you stand for leader, where were you when your country needed you ?
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Simon : You got the 3 ton. New horizons?
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Macarnie: “Heard this evening that the general feeling amongst the cognoscenti is that Cameron will probably get so much of the vote that he cannot lose, no matter what the common members think.”
There’s a suggestion that if Cameron wins with a significantly higher number than the person who comes second, then his opponent will be persuaded to concede and the vote won’t go the members. However I don’t see why Davis/Fox should be so co-operative.
“You got the 3 ton. New horizons?’
We could keep it going for the next Tory leadership contest – no, that’s unkind!
The credit for 300+ belongs to Melissa, not only for tirelessly encouraging our comments, but also for her elegant re-date stamping skills which kept the topic current.
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Simon
Well done on YOUR achievement
You are, as ever, The Gentleman. It was of course your tenacity that kept us going – and still does.
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So it looks like Cameron picked up nearly all of Ken Clarke’s voters, and a few more Davisites defected to Liam Fox. No surprises there.
I tend to agree that it would be a mistake for David Davis to withdraw now and hand Cameron the leadership – having made such a song and dance about the method of electing the new leader, you really do have to give the party at large a choice. I find it unlikely that they’ll chose David Davis, though.
As an aside, your electoral system is philosophically flawed. If the desire is for the parliamentary party to produce two acceptable candidates for the wider party to chose between, you really need to select your two candidates by a Condorcet method.
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Cameron 90
Davis 57
Fox 51
Well, my predictions (“Cameron will get about 90 votes tomorrow with Davis and Fox splitting the rest, each getting about 55″) were quite accurate!
I think it’s worth noting that if another vote took place and the Fox votes were redistributed we would have yet another result. (In other words, the elimination of Clarke may have given us an apparently higher vote for Cameron.)
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Sam, what is the condorcet method – could you expand please?
I am sorry that I am not sold on any of the remaining two, so will have to hope that ONE day someone fun will be elected leader. That would make it all a lot more interesting! Not sure why the leaders leave me cold …
The Party doesn’t though and am still going for the blues in a big way.
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Condorcet is a form of preference voting. There is a long explanation at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method
But it’s really complicated!
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It would appear clear to me that the Conservative Party has not learned any of the lessons, which were abundantly, and obviously, clear during this election process . The people wanted Ken Clarke; Hush Puppies; cigars ,and a pro EU stance notwithstanding, as their next leader; particularly if backed up by that Maidens’ Prayer , the Blue Rinse voters? choice: the ‘Brylcreme’ Lad himself. It could have have been the ideal popular combination :BAT-man & Robin.
However, it is not too late to contemplate a reverse role coupling, Robin and BAT-man ; the result would be , eventually , the same as, or as near to the same as not to make much difference. A mixed marriage , but a possibly happy one.
The Party needs , above all, to be seen as a party capable of Government, otherwise this exercise has been for nought, and a new selection process might, once again,soon be a source of pain for the faithful.
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Oh Lord, Simon! could you just wait a few months while I complete an A level in condorcet elections, then come back to you?
Mac – I think the Tories are in all this for the game. For that is what politics is all about after all in an “I think politics is a game, therefore I am” sort of way. It’s all ludicrous to me. Thank goodness I can get down to the nitty gritty of actually helping to look after constituents’ concerns than all this king making!
Long live politics in Westminster – boo to silly gerrymandering about leadershipbids – let’s settle it once and for all asap.
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Melissa: “let’s settle it once and for all asap.”
Admirable sentiments! However this contest has been going on since 6 May and will last until 6 December: exactly 7 months!
Surely this must be the longest leadership struggle in the history of British democracy!
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Since there has been a dearth of proposed policies , from either of the two gladiators left in the Conservative Party’s ring —- here is my starter for ten! Which will take it up?
If I had heard the same announcement during the last period of Conservative rule , as I heard this morning from the Labour Government, I would have been deafened by the then Opposition’s screams of ” Elitism!”.
For those not having heard the announcement, delivered in the usual nasal whine; the local education authorities are to provide pupil transport, ( presumably free), to a school, possibly as far as 6 miles away from the pupils’ places of residence, in order to ensure that the pupils’ parents have a choice of schooling commensurate with the ability of their offspring.
Blair, always the opportunist to put his actions in a good light , says that other parents have the right to choose, as he did, when he cherry picked a school for his children, because , as he said,( perhaps not in so many words) , “A “bog standard” Comprehensive is not good enough for my kids”. One might well ask, why they were, and still are , not good enough After all; If Government words were currency, we would now have a very rich education system indeed.
The cry of “Education;x three”, was loud enough then , and has been repeated often enough since : why,therefore, are all “bog standard” Comprehensives , even now,not up to the level required by the vast majority of citizens’ children, despite several years of Labour posturing,?
Labour’s answer, as it so often is, to so many other problems, is to raise the level of local government spending, to seek to deliver the undeliverable. When will this deluded bunch of PC quacks get it through their collective heads that all children are not of a single educational ability? They may juggle the league tables as they will, but, since when is one non-academic qualification equal to four academic qualifications? This has been claimed recently, in order to enhance the supposed improvement of educational efficacy of specific schools. Another case of a fudged promise of an improved education policy!
Undoubtedly the right results for some children, but the wrong way to make such a report, since it denigrates the value of the other children’s results.
Of course these NV Qualifications matter,to argue otherwise would be entirely wrong. They are valuable and highly significant tools in the assessment of a future workforce, but they are not the same as GCSEs, no matter how the cookie crumbles.
Specialist schools, and technical colleges used to be the norm for those sorts of qualifications, and a very good job they did too. Why does not the Government admit at last, since it now apparently advocate intelligence tests as a means of allocating school places, that this pseudo American ( junior high / highschool) model of schooling is not what is best for the British ?
Bring back the school system based on ability; after all the Government, according to the latest news as I understand it, seems to be almost halfway there now!
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Macarnie has hit the nail on the bonce
An honest approach to the problems we are trying to solve is required.
Our educational and training systems need to cater for (a) a variety of requirements of society and (b) a variety of requirements on individuals.
Not everyone is going to get everything they want.
A vocational qualification in plumbing is different from an academic qualification in maths in a way that an academic qualification in maths is not different from an academic qualification in history.
A 2.1 degree or better in maths from Cambridge University is different from a 2.1 degree or better in maths from Thames Valley University in a way that A 2.1 degree or better in maths from Cambridge University is not different from a 2.1 degree or better in maths from Swansea University.
Mixed ability academic classes from some age in early double figures onwards don’t work. Either the brightest are neglected and cause trouble or the middle are neglected and cause trouble or the least able are neglected and cause trouble.
Selection for once and for all at 11 may have been too harsh but there are a host of alternatives between that and mixed ability ‘egalitarianism’.
Back in the good old days everyone knew their place and didn’t seek to rise above it. This pernicious myth has been replaced by the equally pernicious myth that anyone can do anything they want if they truly want it so failure in education is no longer the fault of the student. The truth less exciting than both of these is that usually people can do more than they think if they put work in and engage with the probelm, learn from their mistakes and reflect on them.
I am a computer programmer and my qualifications indicate that I am a better programmer than my plimber. His qualifications indicate that he is a better plumber than me. We not equal. If you want a well desinged and tested piece of software then I like to think I am your person. If you want your boiler installed then Garfield is your man. I suspect I know who you would most like to see in midwinter when your pipes burst.
I don’t think Garfield would like to be a programmer and I would rather listen to Margaret Hewiit or Harriet Hodge than be a plumber.
We have moved on to a great degree from the age of deference to a position where it is possible to respect other people for their own achievements and ideas, even though they may not be our achievements or we disagree with the ideas.
Why do we have to build an educational system on the premise of phoney egalitarianism rather than the real needs of society balanced, albeit imperfectly, with the needs of individuals?
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I’d be happy for my children (if I had any) to go to a British university, but not to attend any kind of secondary education here.
The schools seem to be stuck in some kind of limbo between old and new, having lost the standards and virtues of the old traditional literary education without taking advantage of many of the possibilities that have been opened up by the revolution in the way we now access information. (I’ve even heard of one school board, run by a religious cult, that forbids students to use computers.)
The A-level system was introduced in the 1950s and it has never been superseded, although it was apparent from quite early on that it was an examination for its own sake, rather than for the benefit of young people.
The page below is an interview with five 17-year olds in San Francisco about their internet habits:
http://www.reemer.com/archives/2005/10/08/web_20_conversation_with_five_teenagers/
It would be interesting to know what five average British kids would say in a similar interview. Maybe not much. How many British kids could do a Powerpoint presentation? How many even own a computer? I guess they would all be clutching mobile phones!
[sorry, this all off topic . . .]
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Simon: I don’t see this as too far off topic, because the new leader elect, in whichever guise he may come, ( and one of them IS already in the Education ministry in opposition), will have to tackle the problem of Educational limboism which currently afflicts this Government.
This pack of squabbling mutiple committee fans, unlike the Scots and Welsh, are not even able to make a final decision on who may smoke where.
How on earth can we expect a FINAL final decision on a workable,acceptable, education policy to be made, which will be in everyone’s interests , not only of the students, but the disenfranchised parents@ These were recently driven to demand tax rebates for non-delivery of an acceptable system of school allocation.
Should not, in all fairness, Labour’s erstwhile excelsior cry of,
” Education ;education ; education “, now more correctly be ,” Education? Obfuscation! Alienation!
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It would take a monumental effort to drag secondary education out of the early 1990s (1980s?). It’s not just a matter of re-vamping curricula and updating facilities, it’s to do with changing the mentality of teachers, examiners, civil servants etc. who have a vested interest in the existing outmoded system, not to mention the religious groups. Even if modernizing education were possible – and I see no evidence that either of the two main parties can do it – it would take a long time.
Ken Clarke was right is saying that opposition to Labour right now should focus on the economy and reforming the way the central government functions. Issues such as the health service, education, crime etc. have to come afterwards. It will be easier to deal with them after the processes of government have been cleaned up and made more efficient.
I see that Davis “and most of the Tories” voted in favour of the Terror Bill and the 90-day detention today. Why? I thought the Tories were against 90-day detention. Was I wrong?
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Condorcet isn’t really all that complicated. I know it looks complicated, and one can spend a great deal of time proving that Smith sets exists and the like, but the basic idea is simple.
In a Condorcet system, a voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. Ranking candidate A above candidate B is interpreted as the statement “I would prefer candidate A to candidate B”.
Condorcet systems tend to elect compromise candidates – one can easily imagine an election with three candidates – a socialist, a free-marked capitalist, and a centrist “it depends on the situation” type. Now suppose that 40% of the electorate are “right wing” and about 40% are “left”, with 20% in the middle. In a FPTP system, you’ll elect whichever of the socialist and the capitalist got the most votes. In an STV system, you’ll eliminate the centrist first, as he’ll have fewest first preferences, and again select whichever of the two extreme candidates got the most votes.
Assuming that all the socialists would rank the capitalist worst, and vice versa, a Condorcet system would tell you that 60% of people preferred the centrist candidate to the capitalist, and 60% of people preferred him to the red, and elect the centrist.
Condorcet methods also have the advantage that they are difficult to vote tactically in. Whilst you can construct situations in which it is to the advantage of the rational voter to vote other than his true preferences, they tend to be highly artificial and rely on detailed knowledge about how the rest of the electorate will order low-ranking candidates. In a practical election (even one of limited scope amongst 200MPs) the way for a voter to get the best result according to his preferences is to vote for the candidates in true order of preference.
Now, I will admit that counting a Condorcet election is more complicated than counting a FPTP or STV one if you’re going to do the count by hand with a table covered in bits of paper. If one enters the ballots into a computer, all counting methods are trivial.
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Sam: Re Condorcet, I am mightily impressed – even though (or perhaps because) maths has always been my weak point.
Nevertheless I wonder how you would convince the Tories that Condorcet voting is not a cunning ploy invented by the Liberal-Democrats?
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Mac
Whatever happens, we’re less likely to go to the dogs with a Conservative Leader in power than with the current status quo. Am feeling quite philosophical about it now.
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Melissa: “we’re less likely to go to the dogs with a Conservative Leader in power . . . ”
Well, this doesn’t look any more likely now than it did six months ago. Perhaps the only elections that the Tories are sure of winning are their own.
I don’t know whether you saw the Private Eye cover with David Cameron? About 200 messages ago I speculated on how the press would caricature the winner. I think they’re working this out now (references to Little Lord Fauntleroy etc.)
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If the Gods of Politics decree that we will meet at Harringay, that’s where we will eventually have to go.
I totally agree that a leader is needed, and toute de suite,but presently I tend to think I that we are a little like the waters of the Nigara River, destined for the fall.It is a strange fact the the Niagara is Iroquoin word for Bottomlands, and I do not relish ending there.
One can only hope that the present cloud of despondency will lift, and prove that silver linings are sometimes best delivered in a dark envelope. It would, of course , mean that the envelope would have to be opened, before we found what is inside, and Cameron is keeping his plans pretty much under wraps.
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Surely there must be a sufficiency of ammunition currently being delivered by the tribulations,
( but apparently no trials), of Blunkett, to enable damaging salvoes to be delivered to the Labour Ship of State.
If Cameron or Davies wishes to show their metal, this is the time to do it. Let battle commence head on, starting with the carronades, and then swing broadside on and finish the job with the rows of cannon, before coming alongside; using the grappling irons, and finally boarding to take the prize, with cutlass at the ready.
Labour is not Redoubtable :there is no able sniper on the yardarm. However if either of the two budding C-in-Cs wish to emulate Nelson, and win the day, he should remember, ‘England expects.’
Either way, thank goodness I am not playing Hardy!
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