Read like a book. From the top left; Chirac, Le Pen, Jospin, Bayrou, Laguiller, Chevenement, Mamère, Besancenot, Saint-Josse, Madelin, Hue.
Another year gone
I decided not to post over Christmas this year; seemed a little sad to do so really. Anyway, there’s now less than an hour left of 2006, so I thought I might as well post some thoughts on the year as a whole.
On a personal level, it was a good year (although at times it certainly didn’t look that way) with several things that have been a cause of great frustration in my life ceasing to be so. I’m both suprised and glad at that.
Politically, it’s been a mixed year, but better than I’d expected and with some genuine highlights (especially the U.S and Austrian elections) here and there. Even the local elections here went better than I thought they would. Away from elections, things become quite depressing, with British politics apparently being dominated by a series of trivial scandals, vile personality politics, dumbing-down, bigotry and inertia… time and time again the Establishment unwittingly demonstrated just why so few people bother to vote in elections these days. Hopefully things will improve in 2007.
Things have ended (for us; for them ’tis a beginning) on a high though; Romania and Bulgaria have just joined the E.U. I can’t say I’m a fan of how the E.U is run, but I’m something of a believer in what could be thought of as the, or a, European Dream.
Snap!
Yet more vague rumours about a possible snap election sometime soon after the Thane of Fife ascends to his rightful place as leader of the Labour Party (oh and P.M as well) are doing the rounds, and while many of the arguments that accompany said rumours are just absurd*, the idea of a new P.M calling a snap election a few months after kissing hands is hardly a new or especially shocking thing.
I don’t personally see the point in Brown calling a snap election as, unlike Harold Wilson in ‘66 or ‘74, he will have a solid enough majority in the Commons to get through pretty much any legislative programme that pleases him (that’s presuming he has a better relationship with the backbenchers than Blair does, which would hardly be a tricky thing to do). Arguments about “mandates” and so on are, in the end, neither here nor there; the point of politics at this level is (or at least should be) to govern and to legislate, not to risk everything for the sake of personal glory.
*Especially this, bizarre, nonsense:
“He’s off. Someone new is coming. They need a mandate”
Is English even his first language?
So… when are we going to get some conclusions?
I think now is the time to quote a quote on my old blog:
3. I think I’ll just quote Tony Wright here: “And finally, the police said whatever the outcome of this investigation they’d be very happy to share the lessons of it with us and to do that in public evidence session“.
This was back in July, back when it was also indicated that said investigation would be over by September or so. I’ve been sort-of looking forward to seeing what the lessons of the investigation are since then, and think it’s a shame that we’re now going to have to wait until the New Year to find out.
If these lessons involve pointing out serious flaws in the way both the honours system, and the House of Lords in general, operate, then these lessons really couldn’t come soon enough, could they?
Oh well. Only a few months to go. Again.
In other news, the Dear Leader was interviewed by the police as, presumably, a witness of sorts today.
Revenge of the Rustbelt
An analysis of the Congressional Elections of 2006
I was originally going to do a big post of the Democratic gains a few days ago, but decided not to as other sites were doing a much better job of it. Instead, I had a closer look at the results and of the demographics of the Congressional Districts that fell to the Democrats. The overall pattern turned out to be suprisingly clear and, from my point of view, very pleasing.
Of the 29 districts gained by the Democrats, 17 have above average levels of manufacturing employment, 15 have below average levels of professional/managerial occupations and in 13 of them less than 25% of the population have degrees. Whats more, only 5 districts had low levels of manufacturing employment, only 5 high numbers of people in professional/managerial occupations and in just 3 districts was the proportion of people with degrees higher than 33%.
Geographically a similer pattern emerges; 19 of the 29 gains were entirely in (or in the case of PA-8 partially in) what could be thought of as an extended Rust Belt, stretching from New England to Eastern Iowa and also running down through the isolated mining communities of Appalachia to pick up struggling textile towns in North Carolina. In the Interior West (an area long the subject of Democratic fantasies) just three districts fell to the Democrats, while the party gained only two classic Northeastern suburban districts.
This pattern also shows itself in the Senate (both Bob Casey jr and Sherrod Brown swept to landslides on the votes of the industrial working class, impressive inroads into working class rural areas won Missouri for McCaskill, the votes of the industrial north of Rhode Island ended the Chafee dynasty, while a credible showing in Southwest Virginia clinched it for Webb) and in the exit polls, which show both much clearer class lines than in 2004, and gains for the Democrats among religious, especially Catholic, voters; an indication that the power of the wedge issue has declined sharply over the past two years.
It would seem that the return of millions of blue collar workers to the Democratic fold was the main reason for the first national victory for the party for a decade. That the Rustbelt lashed out at the Republicans should not be too suprising (after all, this is the part of America hurt the most by Bush’s economic policies and an area that continues to bleed crucial manufacturing jobs), although perhaps questions could be asked as to why it happend now and not two or four years ago. A short answer would be that the Republican party has (justifiably) lost it’s status as the Party of Moral Values over the past two years, while the Democrats actually showed some intelligence in picking candidates and issues to run on… and which issues to avoid like the plague.
But what now of the future? Ever since the disaster of 1994, the Democrats have been essentially directionless, both in terms of policy and ideas, but also in terms of deciding what parts of America to target in elections. This election seems to answer the question of direction; if the Democrats want to keep (and maybe even expand) their shiny new House majority, then they will have to focus on economic issues (I have a suspicion that protectionist trade policies are something we could be seeing a lot of over the next few years), ignore the sort of wedge issues that caused them electoral defeat after electoral defeat over the past decade, and keep on spending money and finding good candidates to run in the Greater Rustbelt. It would be an act of crass stupidity if the Democrats choose to instead focus their attention on rich people with liberal social views or on the Interior West (the great pipe dream of failed Democratic candidates and strategists). But if this election has taught us anything, it’s that crass stupidity on the part of the Democratic leadership is, hopefully, a thing of the past.
Democrats Take House
Exactly by how much and all that is far from clear, but they’ve done it. Full summary of gains and losses will be up here in a few hours (I need sleep…)
Three down, Twelve to go
So far the Democrats have gained three House seats: IN-2, IN-8 and KY-3. For those with an interest with the links between voting patterns and demographics, all three are predominatly working class.
First Casualties…
Rep. Hostettler (R, IN- 
and Sen. DeWine (R-OH) have been declared as (I think) the first GOP casualties of the election.
