You can’t make this up…

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has been trying to reverse his lacklustre polling with a re-boot of his government, which means he is ’more determined than ever to cut through the dither that holds this country back’.

I guess if you think the fundamental problems of the economy are “dither”, then you’re not exactly starting from a strong place.

Any, I read an article about his latest scheme and actually had to re-read it. Yes, their latest plan to re-boot the economy is with… more DIY?

David Cameron is to announce an emergency year-long free-for-all in house extensions, allowing homeowners to build up to eight metres into their gardens without council planning permission.

So I guess the boost will come from all the extra reality TV shows that will spring up to capture the misadventures of unregulated house modifications?

Bizarre.

The politics of fear

Listen to this brilliant exchange between Michael D Higgins, who has since been elected President of Ireland, and a US tea party backing radio host. Stunning.

News looking good for the European left

The French elections are quickly approaching, and things are looking good (but not great) for Socialist candidate François Hollande…

A quick look at the 13 – yes, 13 – polls carried out recently reveals … not a lot for the first round, next month.

Four suggest Sarkozy is leading, seven have the socialist candidate, François Hollande, ahead, and two have them neck-and-neck. The leader of the far-right Front National (FN), Marine Le Pen, is given a first-round score ranging from 13.3% to 18%, in an election when even 1% is going to make a difference.

Six of the 13 polls give the former prime minister, and Sarkozy’s sworn enemy, Dominique de Villepin between 1% and 1.5%. There is only one problem: he’s not even standing.

Interesting times.

Then in Spain, the austerity budgets of the recently elected People’s Party (Conservative) government are coming up against massive resistance…

Spain‘s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, faces the toughest week of his three months in office as he is forced to announce up to €40bn (£33.45bn) in spending cuts and taxes in a budget on 30 March, the day after a general strike.

…

Rajoy was recently forced to backtrack by fellow EU leaders who refused to accept the deficit target of 5.8% of GDP Spain set unilaterally for this year. They told him to cut to 5.3%.

Queensland and proportional elections

Firstly, commiserations to Anna Bligh, her team and my ALP colleagues who fought so hard for Queensland. Also, congratulations to Campbell Newman – the size of his win is impressive indeed.

One thing that has struck me though, is just how un-proportional the results are. For example, Bligh’s Labor Party received 26.6% of the first preference votes, yet they are only predicted to gain seven seats in the 89 seat Parliament (roughly 8% of the seats).

I’ve crunched some numbers and determined what the Queensland state parliament would look like if they used a purely proportional voting system, with a 5% threshold. It’s important to note that there are other systems out there, such as New Zealand’s MMP, which would allow for the two independents to maintain seats and would change the makeup of Parliament. It also demonstrates the size of Newman’s LNP win – even with a proportional voting system they manage to get a majority of the seats in the parliament – something traditionally very rare with systems like this.

It leaves me feeling very grateful that here in New Zealand we have a proportional voting system!

What the current makeup of the Queensland parliament looks like.

What the Queensland parliament might look like with a proportional voting system.

A big day in politics

Two big events for social democratic parties this weekend.

The first is the Queensland state election. It’s expected that Labor are going to lose – but there may be a silverlining is they can prevent opposition leader Campbell Newman from winning a seat.

The other event is the Canadian NDP leadership convention, which is underway. I haven’t been following it closely and have no idea who will prevail.

I’ll probably be live tweeting the evening – feel free to follow!

Osbourne’s budget – the reaction

The Conservative British chancellor, George Osbourne, has just released their budget. It’s not going down so well. The New Statesman have a fantastic gallery of the various newspaper front pages.

When even the Daily Torygraph are publishing stuff like this, you know you’re in trouble…