The key reason for the change on political momentum was Brown's conference speech last week. He hit home with the 'no time for a novice' line and the new narrative on fairness that felt genuine thanks to his apology on the 10p debate.

But there are more reasons for the change in Labour fortunes, it has been a perfect storm this week for Labour. Firstly, the financial crisis has dominated the headlines and disrupted the Tory conference. An example is how Labour conference last week dominated the first ten minutes of BBC news at 10 and most of Newsnight, the Tories have only come after long debates on both programmes on the financial crisis. Secondly, the Tories support for deregulated markets, again coming back to Brown's speech and his reference to Osborne's 'misery of others' quote, means that Cameron now is on the defensive on why his recipe for growth is the seed of the current financial mess. Because of this defensive line he has to take he cannot get his message out (if he's got one). Moreover, in the electorate's mind has sunk the idea that the Tories don't have a plan for the future (something which is true), and Cameron and Osborne's 'wait and see' line isn't working anymore. No specifics, the 'no time for a novice' argument strengthens itself more and more.

In a recent post I argued that the media needed to take a closer look at the Tories and thankfully they are. They are now asking them the tough questions they should be asked and the Tories are all over the place. Moreover, the Government has kept an institutional and sombre profile, the kind of profile that benefits Brown's image. Darling yesterday quite skilfully deactivated the Tories' line on bipartisanship by saying a vote in Parliament won't be necessary as all changes will be done within existing legislation. Both Brown and Darling are looking much stronger these days. The way they sorted the Bradford & Bingley problem was quick and resolute, and on and on...

It's not over yet, Labour still got a lot of work to do, they are after all still behind in the polls by about 9 points. Unless Cameron blows the house away today that gap should continue narrowing. Key issues No. 10 needs to focus on now, PMQs and the Glenrothes byelection. Brown needs to find a type of performance that can neutralise Cameron's Blair-like show, and Labour needs to put solvent people in charge of the byelection, a win is a must to keep the momentum. Labour is back my friends.

It was a very enjoyable event, all in all.  It was very interesting to meet a lot of new Greens, coming from everywhere from the Borders to the Highlands and Islands.  The food was pretty interesting - I've now borrowed the idea for houmous salad rolls for uni, and they taste awesome, cost little and take just seconds to make up! - and the social event on Saturday night was fantastic!  I loved all the food, drink, and company.  Very interesting to talk to Arnold Cassola from the Maltese Greens, who was kind enough to share his gift of a bottle of Ardbeg single malt with all of us, and I enjoyed my chance to dance with Eileen too.

The actual motions themselves proved less controversial than I expected, apart from one incident where a member started trying to throw down a motion by apparently linking it to the Socialist Workers' Party... okay, where did that come from?  I'm all for debate and democracy, but you can't make wild accusations just to spread discontent about an idea you don't like - the motion, which I supported, fell after the vote.

It was also revealed who would be representing us for the European elections next year:

Elaine Morrison (2nd on Mid Scotland and Fife list in 2007)
Chas Booth (City of Edinburgh Council, Leith ward in 2007, came 4th)
Kirsten Robb (1st on Central Scotland list in 2007; convenor of South Lanarkshire Greens)
Alastair Whitelaw (6th on Glasgow list in 2007)
Ruth Cameron (3rd on Lothians list in 2007)
Peter McColl (City of Edinburgh Council, Portobello/Craigmillar ward in 2007, came 6th; convenor of Scottish Young Greens)

In addition to that, we also had nominations for internal party posts, and I've put myself forward for the ballot for ordinary members to the policy committee, pending approval from council (as I'm a week short of a full year's membership).  I will post more about my stance once I've received confirmation of the ballot, but feel free to ask any questions you wish any time.

Finally, I have a branch committee meeting tonight to prepare things for the upcoming Edinburgh Forth by-election, which should be the next big campaign for me to get involved in.  I'll keep you updated as soon as I can!

MUIR, Andy - Scottish Labour Party - 2167

ANDERSON, John - Scottish Conservative and Unionist - 259

JACKSON, David - Scottish Liberal Democrats - 159

MCLEISH, Tricia Solidarity - Tommy Sheridan - 74

BAILLIE, Charles - British National Party - 73

O'DONNELL, Daniel - Scottish Socialist Party-Scrap Council Tax - 58

CRAWFORD, Moira A - Scottish Green Party - 45

DICKIE, Ian - SUP, Proudly Scottish, Proudly British - 43

Turnout: 22.68%

Poor and disappointing result compared to 2007.  I imagine this may be due to the single-member election meaning Greens have less chance to win, the lack of nationwide campaigning and the very low turnout.

We did at least avoid last place, so in that sense it is an improvement over last time, but to be beaten by the BNP is horrible.  The party was at a disadvantage due to the timing with conference and the lack of knowledge of the area, but it must really try to improve upon this.

Also disappointed that the Lib Dems came a relatively strong fourth, they must have a fair core vote as they did so little campaigning in this election, and that David Turner beat Andy Muir.

Now though I can finally move on to concentrate on the party conference and getting back to uni!

Every day from Saturday to Wednesday I was out canvassing the ward, and covered I imagine somewhere around five hundred homes.  The response varied greatly from area to area: Baillieston was relatively apathetic, while Garrowhill was more encouraging.

Today I spent thirteen hours canvassing at Garrowhill Primary School.  Many people seemed pretty annoyed by the large crowd outside the polling station (it was the largest polling station in the ward, and at one point there were canvassers of seven parties outside it), but a lot of people seemed fairly interested in the Greens as a second choice, and the public and candidates were all largely polite.

I spent all day with the Labour and SNP candidates.  The Labour candidate, Andy Muir, was himself a kind and witty man (I'm somewhat surprised to his being a member of the Labour party, especially since his campaigning often seemed to try to avoid making the connection at all), but the SNP candidate, David Turner, was incredibly aloof and arrogant, generally rude, and rather dismissive of myself and the Greens.  He probably will win the election, but there's no reason to act in such a way at all.  My favourite of the candidates I met today was Daniel O'Donnell, the SSP candidate.  He was very friendly and outgoing and greatly and genuinely interested in Glasgow and the area.  Had I been voting, he would have been my second choice, and I hope he gets a good result.  The Lib Dem candidate apparently had voted first thing in the morning, and then never turned up again - in fact, there was no Lib Dems to be seen anywhere in the ward all day, so I really hope we beat them as we've done the work to deserve it.  Tricia McLeish, the Solidarity candidate, and Ian Dickie, the Scottish Unionist candidate, both showed up at Garrowhill in the later evening, but I didn't talk to either particularly.  There were Tories there from the morning until just before I left, but I never met their candidate.

The BNP had an intermittent presence all day but were largely ignored until the later evening when a large group of Unite Against Fascism campaigners arrived.  The BNP quickly complained of "threatening harassment", by the middle-aged women and cheery students, to the elections officer and the UAF campaigners were told to leave the school if they were not representing a political party.  At that, the SNP, Labour, SSP and Solidarity groups and I stated we would leave along with them if they were told to go (the Tories stated they would remain with the BNP - in fact they were talking cordially at various times, they've apparently dropped the no platform policy).  We did all move down to the gate but shortly after the BNP suddenly left, apparently to chase after Steven Purcell, the council leader, and we returned to the polling station.

The late evening was very slow, wet, and generally unpleasant with the socialist candidates leaving, and the SNP candidate growing ever more arrogant and hostile towards me (he seemed equally keen to insult the Greens and to recruit me to the SNP, he was such an irritating individual).

Another highlight of the day was lunch with Eileen at a local cafe (and the SSP candidate was there too), which was delicious and enjoyable, and my thanks go to Eileen for that.

The result is now due in just about ten minutes, so I'll comment on that shortly.

There were many signs that the ALP in the Northern Territory would take a battering at the polls after their slump in the local government elections. There was even talk late in the campaign, as there usually is mind you, that the Country Liberal Party may possibly win enough seats to have a very slim majority. As it turned out the ALP took a heavy battering but was able to cling to power with a very slim majority. The Greens and the Country Liberal Party, along with a swag of independents proved to be the real winners of the NT general elections. They all polled extraordinarily well in the seats they contested; and in my opinion was proof positive that voters were a little sick to death of hearing about themselves and how they would vote; like it was all worked out.

It didn't take long for the usual commentators, pundits and apparachiks to start drawing conclusions about the result of Western Australia's general elections. The panic had set in for the ALP while the Liberals seemed to have gained some momentum, especially after dumping the seat sniffer. (As an aside whenever I hear a politician say they'll lead their party to the next election it really means their about to get dumped as leader.)

On top of the general elections for WA, there were simultaneous federal by-elections taking place on the very same day. And as things turned out neither the ALP nor the Liberals could declare victory, until recently that is with Brendan Grylls declaring the Liberals had won and would form Western Australia's next (minority) government. And last weekend we saw the ALP get belted even beyond their belief with the crazy shenanigans plaguing NSW and on the back of growing corruption concerns among a number of local government councils.

But through these elections, and despite the supposed pundits ceaseless chatter about the ALP or Liberals, the real chatter should have focussed on the actual voter responses.

Voters have clearly, in my opinion, shown they are sick to death of the same old same old from political parties and representatives. There has been a clear trend across the last few elections that voters want actual solutions and not the usual slagging contest. Instead of going for the usual, voters have gone with the Greens and other minor parties and some independents.

And best of all the political landscape across our fair land has really been flipped on its head.

Roll on ACT general elections.

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]]> http://alexschlotzer.wordpress.com/?p=479 Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:57:19 +0000 Alex Schlotzer http://alexschlotzer.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/live-blog-invite/ On September 6, people across Australia will be heading to their local schools and community centres to spend some precious minutes deciding on their new representatives. From the voters in the federal electorate of Lyne in NSW to the general elections in Western Australia, there is a trifecta of elections and each is interesting and exciting in their own right.

So to celebrate the elections on September 6 (and because I'm a politics junkie) I will be doing a Live Blog session covering the Mayo and Lyne by-elections and the WA general elections.

Be part of the fun and mayhem that is polling night as I blog about the elections' results, analysis and commentary from 6:30pm (Australian Eastern Time), Saturday 6 September.

So lonely and sadly alone
The Canadian media have descended upon Denver en masse, but don't worry—we're holding down the fort.

The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente thinks Michelle Obama is "tough, direct and disciplined," and "a terrific asset" to her husband's campaign. And even though she's toned down her well-known stridency for the convention—"edited her image to suit the occasion," in Wente's words—her personality says a very good thing about Obama himself: namely, "that he desired an equal partnership with a strong, outspoken woman." The voters must decide which of Barack and Michelle or John and Cindy are "the real elitists," Wente concludes, but she finds it mighty tough to pick Michelle Obama over the "living cliché of an Arizona Republican's wife."

The Toronto Star's Rosie DiManno saw Michelle Obama's speech last night as "connecting the tapestry of her parents' working class virtues to the principles espoused by her husband," and as a sort of Cole's Notes version of the campaign's main thrust "for those who maybe didn't quite get it yet." She's a "steadfast daughter of Chicago's South Side," says DiManno, and unlike her husband has spent her entire life in the U.S. As such, DiManno suggests she might represent Obama's "passport to that Middle America of big shoulders and hard work rewarded." (Also, have you ever wanted to know why Mrs. Obama doesn't wear pantyhose? Come on, sure you have. "Long legs," DiManno explains. "Can't get them to fit properly.")

Obama is a perfectly conventional Democrat in just about every sense, Jeffrey Simpson argues in The Globe and Mail, but the "novelty" of his "experience" means some Americans have "to consider their own attitudes" before they can vote for him. As such, he says the convention is all about "framing" Obama—"about trying to make the uncommitted and undecided more comfortable." That's all the more important, he adds, considering "how the reptiles of the Republican right are framing him"—i.e., as "a dangerous lefty, suspiciously Muslim, decidedly un-American and not to be trusted."

"The polarization of American politics is killing Republicans," Andrew Cohen reports in the Ottawa Citizen, and if you want proof, look no further than New Hampshire (where he happens currently to be located) and the rest of the northeast. Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York were once home to "progressive Republican" governors and Senators, Cohen argues, but their numbers are dwindling as their wing of the GOP loses influence and the "political centre" gradually disappears. This makes swing states like New Hampshire all the more critical.

The Globe's John Ibbitson finds plenty of good old-fashioned Democratic discontent among Clinton supporters in Denver, and chronicles the party leadership's feverish attempts to reconcile the Obama and Clinton camps even while "febrile" media types pick at their respective supporters' scabs. "There is little sense that the Clinton loyalists, having no support from Ms. Clinton herself, will be successful in organizing resistance at the convention," he concludes. "Journalists, however, will be listening for boos and catcalls and points-of-order when the vote is finally taken to formally make Mr. Obama the nominee." Jerks.

The Star's Thomas Walkom paints Ted Kennedy as a "wastrel"-cum-"passionate advocate of universal health care, abortion rights and a better deal for the working poor," and suggests it may be difficult for Canadians to truly understand the gravitas he and his last name bring with them to Denver. "He is the icon of liberal America," says Walkom, "and, to many here, the best president the country never had."

Former Liberal MP-cum-academic Ann McLellan explains to the Vancouver Sun's Barbara Yaffe what Canada needs to do to cope with a "highly protectionist Congress": namely, do massive "proactive" legwork on "streamlining border operations in the north" and placate environmentalists in Washington and Sacramento with promises to cut emissions from the oilsands. Sounds a little too simple to be true to us—and with all due respect to McLellan, we're sure Obama isn't promising "a return to an America that is committed to multiculturalism." But anything's worth a try!

Harper? Dion? Are you guys still here?
The Star's James Travers thinks Harper's accede-to-my-demands-or-feel-my-electoral-wrath gambit "is about as close to win-win as politics provides." If the opposition refuses to talk turkey, "he gets to blame them for an election Conservatives want in the bag before the economy or Afghanistan get worse," and for some reason no one in Ottawa, "a capital that thrives on illusion," seems willing or able to call him on it. The Liberals should have "immediately shrugged off the threat and the command performance," he argues, "telling the Prime Minister [they] would see him in Parliament if he doesn't see the Governor-General first." Instead they're playing possum, allowing themselves to be sucked into Harper's game and foreshadowing an election that's "almost certain to turn more on the perception of strong leadership than on where that leadership is leading the country." Which is bad.

The Tories' decision to throw Ken Epp and his unborn victims of crime bill under the big blue bus is "the surest sign yet they're scrubbing clean the political decks for a September trip to the polls," Don Martin argues in the Calgary Herald. He suspects they're "being warned they're vulnerable to smears from their past, particularly among women voters," and thus they're willing to do just about anything to protect themselves: introducing a new, apparently superfluous bill protecting pregnant women without offering any justification for its necessity, for example, or hammering away on crime when "the crime rate is at a 30-year low." We still think hammering away on crime is entirely legitimate, for the record, but it'd certainly be nice if they did so with a modicum of respect for the facts.

The Montreal Gazette's Don MacPherson says if Marc Garneau brings up the NDP's support for extending Bill 101 into federal jurisdiction, then you'll know the Liberals are worried about losing Westmount-Ville Marie in the upcoming by-election. Thus far, it appears they are quite reasonably unconcerned—especially, MacPherson notes, now that Garneau has mastered the art of "campaign[ing] differently in French and English at the same time." (Recent campaign literature on infrastructure referred in French to "the municipalities of Quebec and Canada" and in English to "Canada's municipalities.") Now if Garneau can only learn "how to say different things in two languages at the same time without getting caught," MacPherson quips, he'll be home and dry.

Well I'm glad you asked!

Because following this round of elections, New South Welshmen (or is it Welshpeople?) get to vote in local government elections.  These are usually pretty entertaining affairs and it's certainly the case of the Sydney Lord Mayoralty race.  And following these in quick succession are the ACT general elections and Victoria's local government elections.  The interesting pick of the 6 September tri-fecta of election campaigns is the WA general elections.  After the large swing against Labor and the lower the normal voter turnout, and as predicted, the Labor party is doing some soul searching with the political commentators, wonks and pundits wondering whether the Liberals can win in WA.  Personally I think this a little overboard on the speculation as Western Australians are pretty parochial, even about their politics.  For me the interest will be in the Upper House between the WA Greens and the Nationals WA.  The booming economy of Westralia is a significant ace for the beleaguered Carpenter Government.

The Mayo by-election is really a cavalcade of candidates with 11 candidates.  Lyne has 8 candidates campaigning for votes.  These by-elections will be interesting from the perspective that the Liberals in Mayo and the Nationals in Lyne lack a Labor Party candidate and the major opposition to the status quo is the Australian Greens candidates.  There will be the predictable anti-Greens stereotypes flooding the newsprint and airwaves in these by-elections.

So to celebrate the coming together of 3 separate yet important election campaigns I'm going to do a live blog commentary of the coverage of the Mayo by-election, the Lyne by-election and the WA general elections - September 6 from 6:30pm AEST - here on my blog.

Political steeplechase
In the wake of day seven of the Olympics, the commentary has gone all serious-like again.

"Who on Earth thinks that children aren't treated like interchangeable parts all the time on Western TV programs" Colby Cosh asks, apparently unmoved (as are we, quite frankly) by the plight of seven-year-old Yang Peiyi. And who among us believes "that vocal performers singing anthems and other tricky numbers in open-air stadia don't lip-sync as a matter of course?" Cosh detects the same whiff of hysteria that consumes Canadians whenever our athletes perform below expectations, noting that exactly none of the 15 potential medal-winners the National "We're getting beaten by Togo" Post identified have yet had their chances to medal. "If we were as self-confident as we fancy ourselves," he concludes, "we might at least consider making a collective decision to stop worrying quite so much about the Summer Games."

We were on the fence for much of Rosie DiManno's argument that Saudi Arabia should either allow female athletes to compete in the Olympics or be banned, in view of the IOC's core principle of gender equality, until she reminded us that "South Africa was rendered an Olympic pariah for three decades because of apartheid." Not to say the two phenomenon are equal, but one IOC member recently rejected the comparison on highly suspect grounds, arguing apartheid can't "be considered parallel to the effort to bring women into absolutely equal gender balance." "Balancing the sexes is not even the issue, you hypocritical git," DiManno quite rightly responds in the Toronto Star. "But spoken like a true moral midget."

The Vancouver Sun's Daphne Bramham files a not-very-compelling rundown of all the ex-Soviet backwaters and impoverished African republics currently ahead of us in the medal standings, but just when she seems to be getting to the point, she offers only unanswered questions. Do we want to cut off funding to some sports entirely so that others may flourish? Do we want to send a smaller team? Uh, we don't know—aren't you the opinion columnist? And, of course, there's the classic false Olympic dichotomy: "balanced against health care, education, better roads and safer cities, how much are Canadians willing to spend for a flush of patriotism every four years?"

The Globe and Mail's Christie Blatchford profiles Bent Jensen, world-renowned coach of the Canadian men's rowing team, who is proving a massive inspiration to the team as he battles cancer. "Just before the team left for China, the cumulative toll of the 12-week course of chemo rendering Jensen thin and a little frail, he began sometimes using ski-pole-like sticks to help him walk," she writes. "Occasionally, since arriving in Beijing, the rowers have caught glimpses of him in the hotel in a wheelchair." And yet, even this week, he took in a workout of the lightweight men's four on his bicycle.

Prepare for a fall election. Seriously this time.
Do not roll your eyes in Don Martin's direction just because he is indulging in the sort of election speculation you've heard a thousand times since early 2007. "There's a hefty difference now," he argues in the Calgary Herald, which is that Stephen Harper is threatening to violate the spirit (if not the letter) of his own fixed election date legislation, declaring Parliament unworkable (thanks in large part to his own MPs' obstructionism in committee rooms) and sending us to the polls. Things are indeed different in Ottawa these days, but it seems to us Harper and his minions have made very similar noises in the past. In any case, this might just be the most depressing sentence in Megapundit history: "The only solution for this election-hungry government is to order committee work obstructed by its own MPs to bolster Harper's assessment that parliament is paralyzed beyond repair."

L. Ian MacDonald's area code fetish moves west from the 418 to the 450—Montreal's mainland suburbs—where Saint-Lambert is up for grabs in the Sept. 8 by-elections. As readers of the Montreal Gazette's op-ed pages know by rote, the Tories "have replaced the Liberals as the competitive federalist party everywhere off the island of Montreal," and while the riding should be safe Bloc Québécois territory, the latest almighty CROP poll shows the Tories neck-and-neck across the 450. Add in the fact that provincial Liberals are openly working to help the Tory candidate, MacDonald argues, and you are left with "an interesting story."

"Two-year-olds, teenagers and irrational adults might indulge in pointless self-destruction," Janet Bagnall writes in the Gazette on the subject of the government's sudden arts-funding cancellation spree, "but governments are not supposed to jeopardize entire economic sectors no matter how angry they are that someone they don't like qualified for a grant." That about sums it up, we'd say.

The Caucasian conflagration
"The idea that Georgian aggression forced Russia to intervene [in Georgia] is as absurd as the Nazi claim that Polish aggression started the Second World War," Marcus Gee writes in the Globe. Indeed, he argues, though George Jonas beat him to the analogy, "the Russian claim to be defending minorities in Georgia has unsettling echoes of the Nazi claim to be protecting ethnic Germans when it invaded Czechoslovakia." More to the point, Gee says whatever disastrous provocation Mikheil Saakashvili recently undertook, Vladimir Putin had the whole thing planned from the start and is clearly the aggressor. "Simply abandoning Georgia to Moscow's 'sphere of influence' … would send a signal to democrats from Warsaw to Kiev to Tallinn," he concludes, "that they are on their own."

Lorne Gunter, apparently interpreting Paul Wells' column in this week's Maclean's as a sort of dare, manages to locate "elements of the West vs. Islam conflict in Moscow's actions." To wit: a united, Christian Ossetia would "offer a counterbalance to the Muslims of Chechnya," he argues in the Edmonton Journal, which would, for reasons he doesn't really explain, prevent any of the "200 million Muslims on [Russia's] southern borders" from going jihadi. "Don't imagine the Russians don't think in such terms," he intones.

Duly noted
John Robson, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, urges Canadians to consider how much they value their health, and then to think about how much their government, which has sole dominion over keeping us healthy, values it. If you were responsible for buying your own healthcare, he argues, you would balance that priority against "a car, a home, education for the kids, a retirement fund, a bit of bacon in your porridge and a decent chance of living long enough to enjoy all these good things." Each person would strike a different balance. But "when you hand over health care to government, … these still-necessarily value-for-money calculations are not merely done by someone else. They are also done very differently." And "they are generally not done well."

As I mentioned in the last post the ALP will face a very difficult period with a margin of 1.  The ALP is expected to be returned but there will be the usual blood shed ala ALP-style; public and nasty.  Even though they will won they have really lost and the new NT government will struggle through the next term.

With the Mayo by-election and the WA general elections coming up, will the Liberals learn something from the NT elections.  Although Mayo is considered a walk up start for the Liberals with the Greens as the alternative party.  Western Australia's general elections will be more difficult for the Liberals with the Greens polling strongly.

So on to the next round of elections on September 6:

• Mayo (NSW) by-election
• Lyne (SA) by-election
• WA general elections

It's interesting to see that the NT elections were a pretty quiet affair in a national sense, but as I've mentioned in a previous post about the NT elections, the real interest lies in the performance of the NT Greens and independents contesting a number of seats. Unfortunately for Territorians they are yet to have enough alternatives to the old parties for there to be any real democracy. (The ALP and CLP are essentially a political duopoly in the Northern Territory.)

The line up for Lyne is yet to be as clear as it is for Mayo. The Nationals are apparently having some difficulty finding a replacement for Mark Vaile, even though it's a very safe seat for the Nationals. The ALP will undoubtedly declare they are not contesting Lyne, for to do otherwise would make them look very foolish for declaring they would not contest Mayo (due to the expensive nature of contesting elections). The Lyne by-election will also include a candidate for the Greens, but not the Liberals. They have declared today (Friday) they won't be contesting the Lyne by-election relieving the pressure on the Nationals.

So who do we have contesting Mayo?

We have the Greens' candidate, Lynton Vonow, the Liberals' candidate (and key Howard adviser on Work Choices), Jamie Briggs and the Democrats' candidate.

If these weren't enough for your election addict, then you can always follow the local government elections in New South Wales. The contest for Sydney Lord Mayor is an interesting one with the Liberals candidate trying to replicate the success of his Brisbane colleague, Campbell Newman (minus the corny used car salesperson jingle fortunately). There has also been a lot of activity on YouTube with independent and party candidates using it for their election videos. Although, most of them are pretty boring, safe and predictable given the power of using YouTube and online videos.

On top of all of this Western Australia's Premier, Alan Carpenter, has declared the state's voters decide his fate on September 6. As noted by a number of the mainstream political commentators, this has been done to take advantage of the turmoil within the Liberal Party and the recent change in leadership from seat sniffer to someone who lost the last election. But Carpenter has his own demons to see off with allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women within the WA Labor Party.

Those election addicts out there like me will have a great couple of months watching the different parts of the country go to the polls. For the Liberals the NT and WA polls will be major tests of their campaigning capabilities and their ability to relate to voters on policy issues. It will also be an indicator of voters' sentiments towards their performance as an alternative government having spent so long in opposition.

So if you're an election addict then there is plenty of action over the next couple of months to keep yourself very happy indeed.

So why then hasn't the Australian Electoral Commission announced a date for the Mayo by-election? Could it be that they're actually waiting for the official resignation of Mark Vaile, Member for Lyne, to run them at the same time? Or could it be that the AEC is trying to get as many people as possible enrolled to vote before they declared a date for Mayo and Lyne?

Right now is Enrol to Vote week, a voter enrollment drive by the AEC. When you visit their website this is the most prominent item, replacing the results of the Gippsland by-election. However, there is some very strong reason for the AEC to do this.

With two by-elections to be called, the Northern Territory general elections in August, New South Wales' local government elections in September and Victoria's local government elections in November, the Commission is probably trying to cash in so to speak and try to get as many people enrolled and re-enrolled as possible. In this regard the AEC is fulfilling its responsibilities to ensuring eligible Australians are enrolled to vote. And good on them too!

Check out the AEC's Enrol to Vote Week page

As an aside - there is still some talk of Westralians going to the polls this year, probably in November.

First of all, apologies for the delay in posting the promised graphic -- it turns out that my spreadsheet skillz are somewhat less mad than I realized, and it took for-bleeding-ever to figure out how to make Google Docs do my math homework. Then WordPress was unwilling to accept the code to embed the data in a blog post, at which point the HTML export function stubbornly refused to preserve my meticulously-crafted colour scheme, which meant converting it into JPG format, and ... yeah. I'll spare y'all the rest of the gory details and give you the final version of the Election Financing Graph That Ate My Brain:

Note: These numbers represent advertising expenses only, and were calculated using party and candidate returns.

UPDATE: Also, now actually using the right numbers, which (luckily) didn't change the overall trends in spending between parties and ridings terribly much, so my original analysis wasn't completely off. (Thanks to the Jurist for noting my incredibly silly error.)

So, what can we learn by reading the (by)electoral entrails? A few things, actually:

Taking into account spending by both candidate and party, the Conservatives spent nearly twice and three times as much as the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois respectively, although at least in their case, they did manage to snag a seat that had previously been held by a rival party.

Interestingly, Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot -- where the Tory candidate lost, but increased his party's share of the vote by a decent margin -- cost the party more money than Roberval, which it won. As for Outremont, they seem to have decided early on in the campaign to leave that race to the Liberals and the NDP, which allowed the party to concentrate on the two ridings where the Conservatives had a chance of unseating the Bloc.

As for the Liberals, not surprisingly the party blew virtually its entire advertising allotment in Outremont -- more than $75 $46 K total, compared to less than $4,000 in the other two ridings combined, which is more than ten four times as much as the zero dollars that the NDP, as a party, paid for Thomas Mulchair's eventual victory. As for the candidates, they spent the limit in both Outremont and Roberval, but less than half that in Saint-Hyacinthe.

Meanwhile, the NDP scrupulously divided its party expense limit pie equally amongst all three ridings - okay, an extra dime for Roberval - with not a cent going to advertising. In fact, the only race in which the candidate spent up to the limit was, not surprisingly, Outremont.

Finally, the Bloc Quebecois didn't fork out a cent of party money, which makes Saint-Hyacinthe the most affordable seat of all three ridings, although they did end up losing Roberval to the Conservatives, despite the fact that their candidate had the highest advertising expenses of any of the three Bloc hopefuls.

Based on these numbers, ITQ is ready to make the following prediction:

• The Conservatives will likely spend more than $300 K total on advertising in the upcoming by-elections; that, of course, includes both candidate and party spending - and will probably divide it roughly 60/30/10 between Guelph, Saint-Lambert and Westmount.
• The Liberals, on the other hand, won't bother blanketing Westmount with party-funded ads, although Marc Garneau will come close to hitting the candidate limit, and will probably only fork out a few thousand dollars at most in Saint-Lambert, which will leave the party with at least $150,000 in mad ad money to plow into Guelph.
• Finally, unless party rules require equal spending in by-elections, the NDP will likely not follow the policy of splitting the money three ways, but will instead focus on the two ridings with "star" candidates: Westmount and Guelph.
• As for the Bloc Quebecois, since they only have one riding to worry about, there's little mystery where the party will spend its money -- if it doesn't just leave it up to the candidates, as was the case in 2007.

Must-reads: Scott Taylor on Walter Natynczyk; Dan Gardner and Rex Murphy on Barack Obama.

Same old Ottawa
Stand by for overhyped by-elections, laboured comparisons and impenetrable prose. Jeffrey Simpson's in a good mood, at least.

Lorne Gunter, writing in the Edmonton Journal, says Stephen Harper has nothing to lose in the Sept. 8 by-elections and Stéphane Dion has everything, first and foremost his job. "Should the NDP win Westmount, as it did the previously safe Liberal seat of Outremont last fall, Dion will have trouble keeping his job," he opines, but he goes way out on a limb and says he "suspect[s]" Westmount will stay red. He also suggests the Tories play off the "timidity" of Ontario voters in Guelph by paining the Green Shift as a "radical threat to the status quo."

"By-elections are often overanalyzed, overblown, overrated. In the grand scheme, they shouldn't toll heavily," says The Globe and Mail's Lawrence Martin. "But they do." The Canadian Alliance's "humiliation" in Perth-Middlesex in 2003 convinced Harper to pursue a merger with the Progressive Conservatives; Deb Grey's victory in Beaver River in 1989 constituted Reform's "breakthrough"; and last year's NDP win in Outremont buried Stéphane Dion in an "avalanche of derision." This is all true. But those outcomes strike us less as evidence that by-elections matter than evidence of just how overanalyzed, overblown and overrated they really are.

"Historical parallels" between Lester Pearson's first minority government and Stephen Harper's are "obvious," L. Ian MacDonald writes in the Montreal Gazette. Those parallels are… well, the fact that Harper's is a minority government, the fact that he desires a majority, and (likely) the fact that he won't get it. (One difference: Harper's selfless belief in fixed election dates, which, MacDonald says for the umpteenth time, take much valuable leverage away from the Prime Minister.) This goes on, tediously, for a few hundred words, and then we learn that there's probably going to be an election soon, "since the Liberals realize they can't hide behind the curtains forever."

A "fresh perspective" is always welcome, but "how politicians tug power's levers" and circumvent ethical obstacles is no different under the Tories than it was under the Liberals, says the Toronto Star's James Travers—and that, if it need be said, is a bad thing. Or, in Traversian: "The trend line from Pierre Trudeau to Stephen Harper has been steady: Influence over the amorphous, frustratingly horizontal federal machinery concentrates power in the Prime Minister's Office where issues that matter are managed with command-and-control authority."

The Globe's Jeffrey Simpson offers Canadian politicians plaudits for the following good deeds: Ed Stelmach's decision to fund research into carbon capture and storage; Dalton McGuinty's decision to protect the boreal forest (because "untouched forests are wonderful carbon sinks") and to sign on to the Western Climate Initiative; Stephen Harper for agreeing to pour money into Ontario infrastructure; and the premiers for finally agreeing "that within one sovereign country, there ought to be as few obstacles to the movement of people and capital as possible." (Interestingly, Simpson can sound just as condescending while favouring politicians with praise as when slagging them!)

Hubris? The man is a god!
Barack Obama is not the President of the United States and he has no foreign policy record other than being "perfectly, publicly wrong" about the troop surge in Iraq, Rex Murphy argues in the Globe. A trip to Berlin for a man in such a situation should have involved "making calls on the Chancellor, meeting with opposition politicians, doing—as the Windsors call it—a bit of a walkabout." Instead he mounted the podium like a colossus, Murphy complains, "acting in every way as if he were already president delivering, Urbi et Orbi, a proclamation." This is both awesomely hubristic and "very reckless," Murphy argues, for a man trying to win over millions of undecided voters.

No one will be surprised to learn that the Star's Haroon Siddiqui saw Obama's Berlin rally somewhat differently. He chooses to focus on the moment when Obama spoke of his Kenyan goatherd father and was interrupted by "ululating" women in the distance, "obviously of African or Arab origin." Gravol and barf bags at the ready, Canada? Here we go: "Obama beamed. … Here was an African American running for president being hailed by anonymous Arab-African women, in their own tradition, in the most unlikely of locales, and he … reciprocated instinctively from the depth of his cosmopolitan soul."

The Ottawa Citizen's Dan Gardner says the rapturous applause Obama received in Berlin for what was a clunker of a speech, and the various messianic qualities ascribed to him in some quarters, prove how intense the hopes that have been "projected" onto him are. And we've already seen the downside to that phenomenon, he argues, when Obama adopted a few centrist positions and "the sound of slamming bedroom doors and liberals weeping into their pillows could be heard across America." Gardner is impressed with Obama as a potentially "good chief executive," he concludes—an office he'd be more likely to win "if people stop dreaming that [he] will change the weather and cure lepers."

Military politics
The Edmonton Journal's Graham Thomson recaps Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson's whirlwind tour of Afghanistan, noting his comments on the security situation, corruption and other issues mirrored the trip itself: "low-key, cautious and short," not to mention, in contrast with his predecessor, "gaffe-free." (We're not calling it a gaffe, but we can't help but think that had Maxime Bernier expressed hope "that Afghanistan becomes—or continues to be—a viable state," as Emerson did, he might be taking some flack for it.)

Never mind the media, Scott Taylor counsels Walter Natynczyk in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. By ignoring the chief of defence staff's "appraisal of the insurgency as a complex and challenging entity" and seizing on his "rosy assessment" of the mission's progress, the Ottawa press gallery almost seemed to still be "mourning the departure of the last chief of defence staff and venting that emotion on poor old Natynczyk," Taylor suggests. He has a big enough challenge in keeping his promise not to extend troop deployments, Taylor concludes, without worrying about Canadian editorialists' opinions.

The end of dreams, and of reason
George Jonas, writing in the Post, muses over how the world will go to hell next. Will it devolve into a "clash between U.S.-EU-style democracies and Sino-Russian-style autocracies," as Robert Kagan suggests in his book, The Return of History and the End of Dreams? Will "tribalism" or "militant, theocratic Islam" defeat liberal democracy? Or will "liberalism itself" be our undoing, with its "smoke-, smut-, seat-belt-, language- and calorie-police"? Jonas won't rule any of these dystopias out, but he believes the third is most likely—"democracy allying itself with a kind of pseudo-scientific health-worshipping eco-maniacal post-family feminism, culminating in a whopping tyranny to make autocracy, or even oriental despotism, look like a Boy Scout jamboree." (Betcha five bucks it doesn't happen!)

Also in the Post, Robert Fulford takes issue with one of Kagan's first principles—namely, that people really believed in the early 1990s that western democracy would spread like wildfire once the Soviet Union collapsed. The Berlin Wall come down in 1989, he notes, but that year also "brought the cold-blooded killing of perhaps 1,000 Chinese in Tiananmen Square. … Surely, no one could have digested that year's events and concluded that democracy was everywhere on the march."

In comparing dictatorial Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to Omar Khadr, because both were arguably once child soldiers, the Toronto Sun's Peter Worthington attains stratospheric levels of incoherence. Excelsior! (Remove all references to Khadr from the column and it improves immeasurably, by the way, which just proves how bloody odd it was for him to bring it up.)

Hot air
It was "widely reported" that the UK broadcasting regulator had deemed Channel 4's The Great Global Warming Swindle "unfair, biased and totally misleading," Lorne Gunter argues in the National Post, but in fact it ruled that the documentary did "not materially mislead" viewers. This discrepancy proves that "green authoritarians are as interested in silencing their opponents as they are in disseminating their own views," he suggests, which is why they brought a government agency into it in the first place.

Also in the Post, Terence Corcoran wonders whether Corn Cob Bob—the friendly spokesmascot for the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association—will survive its ongoing battle with the C.D. Howe Institute, which recently released a report questioning the environmental and economic justifications for corn ethanol subsidies. The CRFA's response is, in Corcoran's judgment, "a generalized and impossible to follow critique of [C.D. Howe's] life-cycle analysis methods." Its most devastating counter-argument is that the C.D. Howe report fails to appreciate "that ethanol is less energy efficient than gasoline by volume," Corcoran says, which isn't exactly "a big marketing win" for Bob.

Duly noted
The Vancouver Sun's Daphne Bramham speaks with Doug Charko, the Canadian Olympic team's official meteorologist, about the pollution issue (it all depends on the wind) and China's promise to seed clouds and "avoid downpours" during important events (it's "actual science," says Charko, but only works "on a small scale). Charko is predicting much higher winds for the sailing events than other teams, we learn, which, if he's right, could provide the Canadians with a "huge benefit."

The Globe's Gary Mason reports from Whitehorse on the rapidly changing face of the Yukon and its capital city. On the bright side, massive population growth has led to an explosion in property prices, and many recent land-claim agreements between Ottawa and native bands portend a more prosperous future for the territory's aboriginals. But there's no consensus on whether the attendant loss in image—e.g., the idea that "the typical Yukon woman is … some Buckshot Annie who can blast a shot glass off a person's head with her rifle"—will be good for tourism, or for Whitehorse's soul.

The Globe's Margaret Wente explains how and why she joined the horsey set, and how she came to crack a rib and bruise her coccyx as a result. We prescribe bed rest, ibuprofen and never writing about drug policy again, and wish her a speedy convalescence.

The Nationals will be caught between a rock and hard place on how they run their by-election campaign for Lyne. Sure they'll make some mileage out the ALP not contesting (if that's what they do) but this will be limited with no candidate for hostilities to be directed at and no votes to be won. They will be able to target the Greens as wanting to destroy the agriculture industry, which is plainly untrue. But how would they tackle the Liberals?

But do the Liberals even factor into the Lyne by-election? I think the Nationals will be tested on illustrating their relevance to their supposed voter base in this by-election. They are very thin on the ground when it comes to policies, seemingly deferring to the Liberals without necessarily saying so in so many words.

It wouldn't take much to bring the Nationals' behaviour into question over issues like the Wheat Board Scandal, a festering wound that won't go away. And now they seem to be out of ideas about how to best assist their natural support base, farmers. Since they've supported the buy-out of farmers by the federal government and the sale of land to developers, they've been destroying their own voter base.

I expect the pre-selection to be a bland affair with some usual Nationals suspect (whoever they are). And the election campaign itself to be the usual safe affair from the Nationals with a smattering of attack ads, probably against the Greens.

But this by-election will be interesting to watch from the perspective of the lines in the sand in Lyne for the Nationals.

Trade Union leaders and Labour Backbenchers calling for Gordon Brown to go. David Cameron calling for General Election.

SNP gloating/hungover.

What to do now then if your Labour/Gordon Brown?

1. Don't call a General Election.  Labour will lose and be bankrupted. Only the Tories can afford one politically and financially.

2. Don't axe Brown. There's no heir apparent and it would require a General Election to be called (see No.1)

3. Call the SNP's bluff and hold a referendum on Scottish independence.

Why? Because it won't be on their terms and totally throw them. The SNP will lose, be in dissarry as they have no plans for losing it (at least that they'll admit) and Gordon Brown will at least come of his time in No. 10 winning something.

Release

Date: July 25, 2008

Release: Immediate

PRIME MINISTER HARPER ANNOUNCES BY-ELECTIONS FOR SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Ottawa – Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today that by-elections will be held on Monday, September 8, 2008 in the ridings of Guelph (Ontario), Westmount-Ville Marie (Quebec) and Saint Lambert (Quebec).

Now the only question is whether he'll throw in Don Valley West as a bonus when John Godfrey officially resigns his seat on August 1.

I’m reading the reaction to the by-election with interest. Yes, I know it’s not Islington, but Richard's a Glaswegian-in-exile. And although he spent most of his youth in Shawlands on the south side, they did have a few years in Shettleston in Glasgow East. He felt Deborah Orr’s profile hit the right note, disillusion with Labour but not necessarily enough for an upset. It seemed inconceivable that Labour could lose here; we expected a Lab hold with their majority cut.