Up the Blues

Last Thursday, to my great delight, Britain resoundingly rejected the adoption of the Alternative Vote in favour of keeping our First-Past-The-Post method in the voting system referendum. I always thought it was going to be a close race, with the Yes vote perhaps creeping past the No supporters and snatching electoral 'reform'.

How wrong I was, and how right this country was. With just over 13 million No votes and 6 million Yes's, the No2AV campaign could claim victory as Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats saw their dreams of electoral reform, as well as their council rapport,  crumble before their eyes.

A map of those which voted in favour of Jedward's imprisonment and those that actually listen to their music.

So, we'll be keeping one person, one vote, one Government party, one Official Opposition (most of the time). Perhaps one day there will be another referendum on electoral reform, but for the time being, the voters have made their choice - a choice that was very clear.

What I was also pleasantly surprised at were the local election results. The Conservatives were tipped to lose 400, maybe 500 council seats, while instead we managed a net gain of 86, two of which came from my own borough, and we still have the most councilors in the entire country. Ed Miliband, meanwhile, had a largely underwhelming result all round, and in Scotland his party suffered defeat to the now majority SNP in the Assembly elections, which will pave the way for another referendum, that of Scottish independence. People clearly realize, despite electing almost two and a half thousand red councilors, that Labour are not the way forward, both locally and nationally. Miliband is going to concurrently realize his defeat as he is further dismissed by voters due to the atrocious things his party did in government. How this current government effectively deals with his party's complete train wreck of a previous administration, and how our Tory Councils assist in this repair work, I hope will give us an even better result next year.

Now, the battle for electoral reform is over. The battle for Scottish independence is about to begin.

What Went Right

May 2nd turned out to be a remarkable day in Canadian political history. In the 2011 federal election, Canadians have seen two big winners and one very, very, big loser.

Stephen Harper finally has the majority status he had been seeking for so long, and his country, after five years of grueling opposition appeasement and concession, ultimately decided that enough was enough and a Conservative government was what they too had been seeking. I imagine he and his caucus will be jubilant for days, weeks to come, as for the time being Canada is to be governed in an electoral manner not seen since before Paul Martin, and one without the hassles of constant instability and Commons bartering.

The same cannot be said, however, for Canada's once natural party of governance. The Liberal Party have suffered a terrible defeat and a virtual wipe out of their standing from East to West. For them, it is John Major in 1997 (or, in more pleasing recollection for me, Michael Foot in 1983), Walter Mondale in 1984, Napoleon in Russia, England in Bloemfontein. There can be no other way at looking at it - the Liberals have been decimated, taken over, drowned in a gushing flood of orange, blue, even green.  Their leader, Michael Ignatieff, could not even hold onto his own once firmly red constituency, and his party has lost its Opposition status to Jack Layton and his now 102 strong New Democrat left leaning legion. Such a result has never been seen in Canadian politics, not even when Brian Mulroney swept to Prime Ministership a quarter of a century ago and the Liberals returned only 40 seats. After all the miles traveled, the fearless opposition, the calls of contempt, the promise of a return to a "compassionate, fiscally responsible" Canada, all they have to look forward to is four or five years in not even official opposition stature with 43 less MPs, 800,000 less votes, and an infinity less amount of morale.

But there is hope yet for this weak, damaged party that was hurled into the bin by the Canadian voters, as I will outline.

In Guelph, Frank Valeriote managed to increase his vote quite considerably. While he remains a red light in a huge shade of blue, it is a red light that has individually managed to grow that little bit brighter, and Marty Burke is going to have to wait for another try at getting to Ottawa, if he ever sets his sights there again.

 Better luck next time, boy.

With just 34 MPs, the Liberals have lost their foothold in Stornoway - but it is still not the defeat Kim Campbell was dealt in 1993, who ended up with a measly 2 members. It is a disastrous result for them, but by no means one they cannot return from if they focus hard.

The Bloc Quebecois were, too, handed a tremendous drubbing, and it shows that separatist sentiments and ideals were landed a giant blow, with unity shining through. The unity of Canada is something that the Liberals have strongly believed in and is perhaps a platform they can build upon better in the near future from the Bloc's collapse.

The Greens may have landed their first elected MP, but with almost half a million less votes, they should be exceedingly cautious about how they handle themselves. Elizabeth May is also a complete twonk. So there.

In some ways, it is better in the long term that the Liberals be handed a proper defeat. This is going to give them a good chance to totally rethink their strategy, their policies, what went wrong, and to elect a leader that will pull them back from the abyss. I believe a total, almost Blairite re-branding is in order for them. Just make sure you don't put Pierre Trudeau in charge, lads - that's huge mistake waiting to happen.

I refuse to believe the NDP will survive in Official Opposition. Mustache jokes aside, they're a complete train wreck, a failed socialist rabble of damaging economic mismanagement and social idiocy with a range of disastrous policies more attributed to a town hall laughing stock. Layton might have landed the keys to Stornoway on a bucket load of charisma, but I believe he's going to lose them come 2015/16 in a hail of disenchanted voters, and when he does, his party won't ever be handed them again. The NDP's unavoidable failures ahead will be the Liberals' opportunity to rebuild themselves.

 Jack Layton before the horrendous laboratory / rabid barber accident which adorned him with his superlative upper lip.

Finally, with an extra 24 MPs, Harper is probably fairly happy, but with a majority of 13, it isn't an absolutely irreversible result. There's no denying it's a very decent outcome, but one not pass the majority line by miles and miles. He must also ask whether Canadians really desired his party, or just very badly did not want the Liberals.

For all the criticisms (some of them justified) against Mr Ignatieff, I honestly think he did not deserve the result he was handed. He was far from a great leader and potential Prime Minister, but he is a tremendous intellectual who will never get a chance to put his hugely advantageous knowledge in the global sphere to use for his country in a government, and he would have been a great asset to North America in a foreign relations based role. The time he spent outside Canada clearly returned to grab him in the rear, and he just couldn't shake that "in it for himself, I am better than you" image. He should not have been so badly rejected, though, and I thought some of the ways the Conservatives vilified him and warped  his statements - attacking him for working in Britain and studying at Harvard - was in very bad taste and, as I have said before, quite pathetic. I believe some of the result was down to the endless "he's just visiting" attack ads I couldn't watch television in Canada without seeing twelve hundred of. Unfortunately for him, he gave it a go, and it didn't turn out.

 "What do you mean I don't get free access to the minibar anymore?"

As the aforementioned ex-British Prime Minister John Major said after his grand ousting fourteen years ago, "Politics is a rough old game. Sometimes the ball rolls in your direction, and sometimes it rolls the other way."

Sadly for the Liberal Party of Canada, it didn't just roll away, it was kicked into the air, flew over a neighbour's fence and will remain in his garden for a good deal of time to come.


On a side note, this result bolsters defense of the First-Past-The-Post system. The 41st Canadian federal election is another example of a decisive outcome thanks to FPTP.