According to Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative party can gain from voting reform. It would be in the marginal seats that the Alternative Vote (AV) system would make a decisive difference, should the public vote yes for AV in the referendum planned for May, 2011.
Samples of 1500 people were interviewed in each of the following four groups of marginal constituencies:
1. The 50 most marginal and Labour-held with the Conservatives second.
2. The 50 most marginal and Conservative-held with Labour second.
3. The 25 most marginal and Liberal Democrat-held with the Conservatives second.
4. The 25 most marginal and Conservative-held with the Liberal Democrats second.
Under the current first-past-the-post voting system, Labour would now gain 28 of the seats where it was in second place to the Conservatives (group 2 above), due to a 4-point drop in the Liberal Democrat share exclusively benefiting Labour.
For the 25 Liberal Democrat-held seats (group 3 above), a dramatic 15-point fall in their vote compared with the general election hands all these seats to the Conservatives plus a further 5, the total of 30 new Conservatives then still two more than the 28 lost to Labour (in group 2 above).
Under AV the results are less dramatic. In Conservative-Labour marginal constituencies (group 2 above), while Labour voters were much more likely to give their second preferences to the Liberal Democrats, the latter were in turn more likely to give their second preferences to the Conservatives, although by a smaller margin. Overall Labour would gain 16 Conservative seats from group 2 under AV.
The effect of AV on group 3 above (the 25 Liberal Democrat-Conservative marginal seats) was that the Liberal Democrats were significant beneficiaries of second and third preferences. However, they were also so lacking in first preferences that the vote transfers only served to narrow the Conservative gains under first-past-the-post to 19 new seats under AV.
The overall result under AV would still leave the Conservatives (with 19) three seats up on Labour (with 16), compared with their two seat advantage (from 30) over Labour (with 28) under first-past-the-post.
This analysis of course takes no account of the effects of the proposed reduction in the number of constituencies (see article under Categories/Chairman »s Blog/Electoral Bias in the right hand column index), other possible changes in voter behaviour under AV (see the article under Categories/Chairman?s Blog/Alternative Vote in the right hand column index) and a surge in support for the Liberal Democrats compared with their current low standing in the opinion polls.
For full details of this Swing Voters Poll, go to www.lordashcroft and click on Latest News.
Archive for the ‘Chairman »s blog’ Category
Swing Voters Poll
mercredi, septembre 29th, 2010Fiscal Credibility
mardi, septembre 14th, 2010To restore its fiscal credibility within global financial markets, the Coalition has set itself the political goal of eliminating the current structural deficit (11% of GDP) in the UK by the end of this parliament (2015). Ed. Balls now shadow education secretary but with a major economic influence on Gordon Brown in the last government, has responded with what seems a rather self-serving attack on this planned deficit reduction programme, when linked to his ambitions as a candidate in the current Labour leadership contest and an associated need for public-sector union votes.
According to Mr Balls, there was no significant structural deficit until the collapse of tax revenues from the financial sector in 2008, although the Office for Budget Responsibility (charged with an independent watch over government fiscal policy) has this deficit already averaging 2.7% of GDP (£40 billion) from 2003 onwards. He had even warned the previous Labour chancellor Alistair Darling, that his planned £73 billion of fiscal tightening (of which £52 billion was in reduced planned public spending) to try and only halve the deficit over four years, was a mistake. Although seemingly ignoring the negative effects of the financial markets on the credit rating and associated elevated borrowing costs of the UK government, he is on the side of the more Keynesian economists who argue that the aggressive cuts planned by the Coalition will severely undermine the recovery. Indeed, he is advocating for the UK economy the example of the US which to date, despite its large deficit, has hardly tightened fiscal policy with almost US$1 trillion of financial stimulus and additional proposals from President Obama for e.g. US$50 billion of extra spending on infrastructure. The latter is viewed as key to supporting more rapid economic growth in the future. In the UK, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) for the employers supports this case in warning against large cuts in spending on roads and rail.
The problem for the UK is that it is not as fortunate as the US which has in its favour the US$ as the major reserve currency in global financial markets, should the US choose to continue to try and spend its way to economic recovery. That is, unless the Chinese government, with its huge foreign currency reserves in US$, decides for geopolitical reasons to severely undermine the value of its US government bond holdings through a major sell-off. In the case of the UK, according to the Institute of Fiscal studies, a policy of ignoring the financial markets and rating agencies, together with continued borrowing instead of cutting public services and projects, would result in a deficit of 7% of GDP by 2015 and total public debt rising unsustainably towards 100% of GDP and beyond.
Within Europe in comparison, a country such as Germany with a deficit below 4% and a booming export sector has much more fiscal space should it so choose, to stimulate demand in its domestic market and at the same time drive overall growth within the Euro-zone and the EU. However, Germany with a memory of the effects of hyper-inflation not that far in its past, prefers savings and investment over the seemingly unrestricted consumer borrowing and spending of its more profligate neighbours, who should first put their own houses in order.
Fairness
jeudi, septembre 9th, 2010Fairness is probably best associated in the British mind (or, that is, how some of us at least would like to perceive ourselves as associated) with an inherent and traditional sense of fair play, using as an example the sporting analogy of equal conditions (or a level playing field) for all within the agreed rules for a particular game. Indeed, it has been suggested that this is one of the reasons for the British being the initiators of many of the organised games and sports with popular appeal around the world. Whether within the multi-cultural Britain of today a common understanding of, and general adherence to, such a sense of fair play still applies is open to debate. However, the Conservative party is associated with certain traditional values and its current image in the public mind is embodied by David Cameron its leader and the Prime Minister. His image is that of a patrician commanding respect through his bearing, complemented by good manners (although perhaps considered rather old fashioned in the Britain of today), born to lead with a self-confident and business-like approach; together with all this, however, must come a traditional sense of responsibility with respect to public trust, to ensure that the rhetoric of the Coalition on fairness is not specious or proven lacking in reality underneath the fine words.
Therefore, it was careless of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after insisting his budget cuts were both fair and progressive, to be caught out so easily by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS). The IFS was able to point out that the distributive effects of the tax and welfare measures of the Coalition, when the tax increases on high earners adopted from the last Labour government are excluded, are in fact not progressive but more regressive with the poorest unfairly suffering cuts proportionally greater than the better off.
It is ironic that the Chancellor has just announced today that he has appointed Robert Chote the Director of the IFS as the new Chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the putative independent watchdog over Treasury fiscal projections.
Electoral Bias
mardi, août 31st, 2010A number of elements within a voting system can contribute to electoral bias (i.e. when two or more parties obtain similar levels of voter support but receive significantly different shares of parliamentary seats). Such elements include:
1. Unequal electorate size (mal-apportionment)
2. Voter distribution (geography)
3. Different levels of turnout (abstention or under-registration).
4. Competition from smaller parties
The current UK electoral system favours the Labour party (worth 63 seats at the last election) and the Coalition government sees an urgent need for new parliamentary constituency boundaries to remove the advantage Labour is perceived to gain from unequal electorate size (1. above). The Conservatives prefer a House of Commons reduced to 600 seats (-7.7%) – a smaller Commons also saving taxpayer money – and a single electoral quota of around 76,000 electors per constituency.
However, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, directors of The Elections Centre, University of Plymouth, consider that the effect of such mal-apportionment (1. above) on the Labour advantage is much less than the way in which the Labour vote is more efficiently distributed (2. above) across the Country, turnout (3. above) in Labour seats also being lower. Labour is, therefore, accusing the Coalition of trying to fix constituency boundaries for political purposes and pointing out that of the around 3.5 million UK residents qualifying for a parliamentary vote but missing from electoral registers, very many are in Labour ?supporting areas, one reason why Labour MPs represent smaller constituencies on average.
In a reduced Commons, Labour could lose 27 (11%) of its current 258 seats, the Liberal Democrats 6 (11%) of their 57 seats and the Conservatives 13 (4%) of their 307 seats, the latter then still short of an overall majority (of 301 seats out of 600) despite being well ahead of Labour in the popular vote. It should be noted, however, that although the boundary review will solve the problem of mal-apportionment (1.), ignoring the bias produced by the other important elements (2. and 3. above) may result in Labour only losing around 10 ? 12 % (i.e. – 27 + 13 + 6 seats) out of its total advantage of 63 seats.
Alternative Vote (AV)
vendredi, août 27th, 2010The Alternative Vote (AV) system in Australia produced a hung parliament in their recent election, whilst first-past-the-post (in contrast to the UK election) would have resulted in a clear Conservative victory.
AV changes voter and Party behaviour. In the UK the Liberal Democrats would expect to win a lot of second preference votes under an AV system but AV can also encourage votes for other parties such as the Greens (now the third force in Australian politics with Labour owing 8 of its 70 or so seats to the second preferences of Green voters). This is because such voters have the luxury under AV of significantly reducing the possibility of a wasted vote by e.g. choosing a Green candidate first and a mainstream party as their second choice. The main parties also have more flexibility to move towards the centre e.g. the Conservatives could be more confident of securing most right wing second preferences and can compete more actively for the middle political ground. Similarly, Labour could count on being the second choice of e.g. left wing Liberal Democrat voters, as it targets voters in the centre.
Overall, therefore, although AV could still favour the Liberal Democrats in the UK, the party might also find itself pushed further from the centre ground by both Labour and the Conservatives, opening up the fracture between its right and left wings.
Sir Philip Green
vendredi, août 20th, 2010A division has emerged in the coalition over the appointment by David Cameron of Sir Philip Green as an unpaid financial trouble-shooter, tasked with making recommendations on how to make the public sector more efficient. Lib Dem MPs who campaigned against tax avoidance in the election are demanding a review of the tax arrangements of this businessman who has avoided tax on the personal fortune made from his business empire by handing ownership to his wife, now living in the tax haven of Monaco and legally avoiding tax on dividends from his companies.
Under pressure from his MPs, Nick Clegg has said that they are looking at the case for an anti-avoidance rule to ensure that wealthy individuals pay their fair share of tax. Lib Dem MPs add that tax avoidance costs the Country far more than benefit fraud, the latter of such major concern to the Conservatives.
In defence of Sir Philip his companies are registered to pay tax in the UK, his large number of employees all pay tax and his personal tax avoidance scheme via his wife is not illegal. He and his team will also only be making recommendations and he will not be in government making laws. He is unfortunately like Lord Ashcroft a prominent example of the flexibility that wealthy individuals have to minimise their tax exposure under the current UK
tax laws. However, the Coalition agreement also commits the government to make every effort to tackle tax avoidance including detailed development of Liberal Democrat proposals, although in principle no decision has been taken on whether to support a general rule outlawing tax avoidance.
It is good that the Coalition is pulling in such experience and talent to help sort out the Country and also moving away from the dogmatic politics of yesterday by inviting others such as Frank Field and Alan Milburn from the Labour party to provide their expertise e.g. on respectively poverty and social mobility. However, a further question has now been raised on the judgement of David Cameron with the resignation of David Rowland the new Conservative party treasurer, who was only appointed in June having returned from tax exile last year and given £2.7 million to the Conservative election campaign. Apparently Mr Cameron ignored warnings that he was not the man for the job. Whether the internal strains within the Coalition from the appointment of Sir Philip Green will prove to be worth it should be judged together with the practical effectiveness of the actual recommendations resulting from the efforts of him and his team.
Council Housing Reforms
vendredi, août 13th, 2010A Sunday Times poll on the reforms to council housing suggested last week by David Cameron, found 62% in favour versus 32% against. It was proposed that, in future, people moving into council homes could be put on short-term leases, renewable every five years.
The risk for the Conservative party is in alienating the type of person once won over as a voter by the chance to buy their council house and representing those with aspirations on the council estates. Without the stability from longer term security of tenure, there will also be no incentive for council tenants to improve and add value to their housing through their own efforts. There is a certain mismatch perhaps between those on one side who regard a house purely as an asset to trade profitably up the property ladder when the market allows and those for whom a house or flat is very personal and valued as their home, even a council home.
However, the council housing market would benefit from being made more flexible such as via the proposed freedom pass database of the reforms, to allow council tenants in complementary circumstances to exchange houses e.g. to find work elsewhere. Housing associations and councils already try and encourage tenants whose children have left home to exchange their house for a smaller flat. They also endeavour to cut down on abuses of the system such as sub-letting of council properties.
This council housing debate overlaps with the one on more control over immigration. One of the consequences of mass immigration doing the recent Labour years is that of the 1.8 million on the council house waiting list, rather a large proportion particularly in London are from immigrant communities. The positive contribution to society of such communities, therefore, also needs to be offset against the resources and services they require such as access to scarce council homes.
Trident Challenge
vendredi, août 6th, 2010France and the UK similar but now only medium-sized powers, still occupy two seats on the UN Security Council along with the US, Russia and China, the main and victorious allies from the second world war. Both have retained their own nuclear deterrent capability which would appear to be based on an assumed although non-existent Cold War threat of a surprise attack, but which also serves to reinforce their otherwise diminished claims to remain at the Security Council table, when challenged by e.g. the more economically powerful Germany or Japan and the rapidly emerging India or Brazil.
In the case of the UK, the defence strategy for conventional forces assumes the opposite to the nuclear option i.e. that there is no immediate threat of an attack by another state. Also, contrary to the independence of the French nuclear deterrent, the UK relies on the US for its technology and now faces a decision on renewal of its Trident seaborne deterrent, a £20 billion or more commitment over the next 15 years. The governing coalition has pledged to maintain this deterrent but both parties have agreed that the case for Trident be re-examined to ensure continuing value for money and that the Liberal Democrats can also propose an alternative for consideration. Trident itself has been specifically excluded from the Strategic Defence and Security review but the Conservative Defence Minister Liam Fox has been landed with the hot potato of not only producing budget savings of 10% or so within the Ministry of Defence but also finding an extra £20 billion to replace Trident. He is faced, therefore, with either budgeting for a straight Trident replacement and comprehensively cutting back on the conventional defence portion or choosing a cost-reduced, alternative deterrent and a new defence strategy.
The Trident challenge for Prime Minister David Cameron is that strong defence of the realm is the default position traditionally adopted by the Conservative Party and its supporters going back to Mrs Thatcher and her nuclear deterrent commitment in the 1980s.The harsh realities of coalition government have already meant that core Conservative beliefs in e.g. low taxes and first past the post voting etc. have already been compromised. The future of Trident could be viewed as challenging what the Conservative Party fundamentally stands for and Mr Cameron might do well, therefore, to spend more time reconnecting with traditional Conservative voters, activists and MPs on the issue of core Conservative values.
Green Economy
vendredi, juillet 30th, 2010Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, has been pressing his fellow environment ministers to increase the already challenging carbon emissions reduction target of the European Union. However, across Europe countries under severe budget constraints are already cutting back on their expensive carbon reduction programmes or modifying them. The Spanish and German governments for example are reducing their subsidies to solar power by some 30%. In Britain, the governing Coalition has scrapped plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport, supposedly on environmental grounds, but has abolished the Sustainable Development Commission, the official watchdog originally created to oversee the drive to a so-called Green Economy. It seems that the government is also abandoning the previous Labour plan to invest £1 billion raised by the sale of state assets, such as the Channel tunnel link, into a so-called Green Investment Bank and instead use the money to reduce the budget deficit.
To meet the carbon emissions reduction target, major subsidies will be needed to enable the electricity supply industry to switch from fossil fuels (which currently are used to generate some 70% of UK demand) to renewable sources of energy such as solar or wind power. Mr Huhne favours renewable energy but seems to dislike the thought of nuclear generated energy (and its associated toxic waste disposal problem) which at source can be recycled and has stated that there is no money in the budget for nuclear power stations. Currently nuclear power stations provide some 22% of UK demand with renewable energy sources only producing around 5%. The remainder is imported (via a sub-Channel power cable) from France which, for energy security reasons following the oil crisis in the 1970s, produces around 80% of its electricity output from 50 nuclear power stations and around 50% of its total energy needs.
The current generation of nuclear power stations in the UK will be completely phased out by 2020 and 10 sites have been identified for construction of the next generation, which with planning and procurement delays together with a typical 4-5 year construction phase would still not come fully into service until late in the decade. Although a nuclear power station could cost an additional 50% or more of a conventional gas-powered equivalent, the more stable prices and supply sources for the uranium fuel with station operating costs at 10% of total capital, offer major savings compared with the 80% operating costs of the fossil fuel alternative, which in the case of gas is much less predictable in price and sources of supply. The latest, more fuel efficient, nuclear reactors over their design lives are also said to generate only 10% of the waste produced by the entire UK nuclear sector to date.
Given then the non-constant nature of renewable energy supplies e.g. from less predictable wind power (as of 1st August, 2010 there were 264 wind farms in the UK producing nearly 4.5 gigawatt of electricity) and that the McKinsey consulting firm has calculated renewable investments could cost £430 to save one tonne of carbon dioxide compared with the £8 per tonne offered by nuclear the latter, granted an appropriate in-feed tariff to the national grid, should play a major role in meeting the future energy demand of the UK and the carbon emissions reduction target of its green economy.