Newspaper readership and voting patterns

It may have been the "Sun wot won it" in 1992, but in the most recent election it seems the Independent was most in tune with the electorate. Yesterday's Indy contains a guide to the influence which newspapers have had (or not had) on UK general elections since the Great War. According to a study by Deacon and Wring of Loughborough University, the voting behaviour of national newspaper readers in May 2010 was:

Independent: 29 per cent Lab; 36 per cent Con; 23 per cent  Lib Dem.

Times: 22 per cent Lab; 49 per cent Con; 24 per cent Lib Dem.

Telegraph: 7 per cent Lab;  70 per cent Con; 18 per cent  Lib Dem.

Daily Express: 19 per cent Lab; 53 per cent Con; 18 per cent Lib Dem.

Daily Mail: 16 per cent Lab; 59 per cent Con; 16 per cent Lib Dem.

The Sun: 28 per cent Lab; 43 per cent Con; 18 per cent Lib Dem.

Daily Mirror: 59 per cent Lab; 16 per cent Con; 17 per cent  Lib Dem.

Guardian: 46 per cent Lab; 9 per cent Con; 37 per cent Lib Dem.

This compares with the actual voting of: Conservative 36.06% , Labour  29.00%, Lib. Dem. 23.03% (courtesy of UKElect).

Ed Miliband's financial blank page

I have disagreed with Paul Reynolds over his jaundiced view of the civil service, but I think he is spot on with this criticism of Labour:

At recent hustings (I’m a candidate in West Ham and doing some Newham-wide events) Labour incumbents robotically read through lists of extra spending promises, but dodge much else with bland statements of the blindingly obvious. They peddle the myth of the 2007 ‘global crisis’.

The truth is that the crisis originated in the UK and US and then affected severely only a few countries. There was no ‘'global financial crisis’ in Turkey, China, South America, SE Asia, Germany, Scandinavia or Australia (although of course they were later affected by reduced demand in USA and other countries). [My emphasis]

Labour spokespeople  still deny the UK’s economic vulnerability from  pre-2007 Labour over-borrowing, which left little room to deal with the crisis, and thus led to emergency cuts.

Maybe this explains Ed Miliband’s policies on preventing another financial crisis in the UK. Apart from a few vague populist promises the page is entirely blank.

Any cursory read of the financial press shows how banks are up to their old tricks, and how close we are to another financial sector crash. But surprisingly given their prior culpability, Labour has nothing to say about this. All the running on further crash-prevention has been made in government by Vince Cable, Lib Dem (former) MEP Sharon Bowles in the EU, and the anti-Cameron, Pro-EU Tory MP Andrew Tyrie in Parliament.

We can only presume the restart of Labour Blairite shoe-lace licking in the City is already well underway.

One should remember that key people directing the country's economic policy in the Blair Brown era are still in place in the Labour leader's group.

Earthquake response donations - a reminder

The Gurkhas earthquake response donation page is https://www.gwt.org.uk/donate/earthquake

The main Disasters Emergency Committee page is http://www.dec.org.uk/

The UK government will match the first £5m raised by a fund seeking donations towards the Nepalese earthquake. (The United States and the Canadian federal governments have announced similar programmes. Their match-funding ends on 25th May, but, it appears, there is no upper cash limit.)

The latest estimate of casualties exceeds 10,000.

First fruits of the new CFP

A move towards sustainability of fishing stocks in the Baltic was approved by the European Parliament yesterday as a result of the revised Common Fisheries Policy. One trusts that this scheme is a precursor to those for larger fishing grounds.

Nepal

At the time of writing the number of confirmed deaths in Nepal is 3700. Because of the difficulties of communication in the mountainous nation, there is almost certainly worse news to come.

The Gurkha Welfare Trust reports on Facebook:

Reports of significant damage to the homes of our Gurkha veterans across affected areas are now starting to pour into our HQ in Pokhara. Damage ranges from cracks to complete destruction with our pensioners sleeping in temporary accommodation. It's clear that large numbers have been affected.

The Disasters Emergency Committee is collecting to help the Nepalis. May I also put in a word for the Gurkha Welfare Trust? Donating to the GWT will not only help deserving veterans, who have links to this part of the world, but also reduce the load on other aid workers.

We should be proud of the volunteers from the Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service who are taking their expertise and specialist equipment to Nepal. COBRA and the International Development ministry have also moved swiftly to assist. The speed of this response points to the need for any future government to retain the Department for International Development machinery.

Cheshire loses another football league club

Yesterday's results confirmed Birkenhead's Tranmere Rovers' drop into non-league football for the first time in 94 years. I remember when the Rovers were constantly in the top half of Division 2 (now The Championship). It was rumoured that the club made more from being regular challengers than actually achieving promotion. How things have changed!

In my lifetime New Brighton, Chester and Stockport County have departed, and Macclesfield have been in and out of the League. By my reckoning that just leaves Crewe Alexandra representing Cheshire.

I admire Mark Palios's optimism, but the record of teams attempting to return is not good.

Refereeing elections

The ruling of Judge Richard Mawrey on the conduct of the late mayoral election in Tower Hamlets, repays reading in full. It is far from the usual dry analysis. Part of his preamble deserves wider circulation.

17 Before dealing with the law relating to election petitions, it is necessary briefly to rebut
the criticism made in certain quarters after the high profile case of Watkins v Woolas
(referred to hereafter as ‘Woolas’) in which the election of Mr Philip Woolas as Member of Parliament for Oldham East and Saddleworth in 2010 was set aside by an election court on the ground that Mr Woolas had committed an illegal practice contrary to s 106 of the 1983 Act (which will be discussed in detail later in this judgment).

18 The criticism is usually voiced in terms of ‘unelected judges unseating democratically elected politicians’, the obvious implication being that this process is itself undemocratic.

19 There are two answers to this criticism. First the resolution of disputed elections by the courts is not a power the judges have arrogated to themselves. It is a task laid upon them by Parliament, a task, what is more, that the judiciary originally resisted tooth and nail. As the history of election courts set out in Woolas in the Divisional Court shows, when, in 1868, it was proposed that election disputes should be referred to the courts, the then Lord Chief Justice, Sir Alexander Cockburn Bt (ironically the country’s leading expert in electoral law), wrote a stern letter of protest to the Lord Chancellor and earned himself an unflattering cartoon in Punch for his pains. All to no avail. The reason is obvious: if, as Parliament believed, and has continued to believe, politicians cannot be trusted to resolve election disputes fairly, then who is left but the judiciary? Election courts have thus lasted from 1868 to the present.

20 The second reason is that the criticism itself begs the question. If a candidate is elected in breach of the rules for elections laid down in the legislation, then he cannot be said to have been ‘democratically elected’. In elections, as in sport, those who win by cheating have not properly won and are disqualified. Nor is it of any avail for the candidate to say ‘I would have won anyway’ because cheating leads to disqualification whether it was necessary for the victory or not. In recent election cases, for example, it has been proved that candidates were elected by the use of hundreds (in Birmingham, thousands) of forged votes: would anyone seriously claim that those candidates had been ‘democratically elected’?

It is an answer to those of my Labour-supporting friends who protest that elections can be overturned "on a whim", "if the losers don't like it". (Some whim; the legal costs are high.)

Mr Mawrey's final paragraph has even wider resonance:

Events of recent months in contexts very different from electoral malpractice have starkly demonstrated what happens when those in authority are afraid to confront wrongdoing for fear of allegations of racism and Islamophobia. Even in the multicultural society which is 21st century Britain, the law must be applied fairly and equally to everyone. Otherwise we are lost.

Another EU state votes in Liberals

In last Sunday's elections, Suomen Keskuta, the liberal Centre Party, became the largest party in the Finnish parliament. The Liberal International report does not say what the opinion polls were predicting.

Another party to do well was the one formed to look after the interests of the Swedish-speaking community in Finland (from which, incidentally, the composer Sibelius sprang). One would have thought from its name that the Swedish People's Party was either extremely socialist or extremely fascist but, no, it too is a liberal party.