Copyright © 2007 Edelman Worldwide. All rights reserved.
As we enter the last few days before polling in Scotland, it looks like the SNP are set fair for substantial gains; overtaking Labour to become the largest party in the Scottish Parliament. Yet, ironically, their success could yet come at a price for their own Leader. Alex Salmond, lacking a constituency of his own, is standing in the Lib Dem seat of Gordon where the SNP currently lie in third place. My understanding from colleagues on the ground is that it is neck and neck between the Nats and Lib Dems with the Tories and Labour well out of it. An element of tactical voting will also come into play here. If I were, for example, a Labour voter in Gordon I would be sorely tempted to cast my ballot for the sitting Lib Dem. Labour has no chance whatever of winning here (they’re currently in fourth on 10%) and I may decide that the one ’silver lining’ on a night consisting almost entirely of clouds would be to deprive Mr Salmond of his seat at Holyrood - not least because he is keeping his seat at Westminster in any event.
The SNP leader is also standing on the regional ‘top up’ list yet - and here’s the irony - if the Nationalists do well in the constituencies across the North East and pick up seats like Aberdeen Central, then they will lose out on the top up and he will fail to get elected here either. He may yet be first across the finish line in Gordon but, if not, look out for the grin fixé and gritted teeth from the Big Man on the night.
Whether Labour can get its vote out will be key in deciding who is going to win the Scottish elections on Thursday. If Labour’s vote stays at home, as most expect it to do, then the polls could well be right and we’re looking at an SNP-led Executive taking power in Scotland for the next four years. If Labour’s core vote can be brought out to the polls - and moreover, persudaded to vote for Jack McConnell’s party - Labour could make an unexpected last-minute comeback. For all parties, Labour especially, this is what all the parties will be doing as the short campaign comes to a close.
Traditional methods of door knocking and telephone canvassing - GOTV to use some politico-speak - only works so far. One new tactic, which I am especially impressed by, is the maximising of your personal web 2.0 presence to spread your political messages. Here’s a good tactic and one we’re going to see much more of: changing your facebook.com profile picture to a political message, candidate or party you support. Try browsing in Edinburgh University for friends on Facebook, for instance, and you’ll see an incredible politicisation of profile pictures lead by Sarah Boyack’s Labour campaign and the other political force on campus, the Greens.
An interesting tactic, but more impressive is the incredible volume of ‘graffiti’ of messages and wall-posts that political themed individuals are now making. By posting on a friends’ wall, you put up a message - be it political or not - next to a picture of your chosen political message where you’re face picture would normally be. This stays on their profile until the profile’s owner deletes it. By trusting someone sufficiently to be a friend, you have to take the gamble that you trust them to comment directly on your profile for all to see. You are associated with their views and vice-versa. When you’re doing this to make a political statement rather than just social networking this becomes a more difficult equation - and one that will test the notion of ‘friendship’ online.
As a facebook-addict I changed my picture to something equally poilitical (disclaimer: I’m a Labour Party member) and I’ve already had a Liberal Democrat remove me as a friend to stop my profile picture (and its poilitical message) appearing on his pro-LibDem profile. And he won’t be the last I wager. Unusually, the LibDems have not yet adopted little ‘winning here’ logos on their profiles. Give it a few days….web 2.0 tactics cannot be ‘owned’ by one group alone….that is what makes it such a useful political resource.
Cross-posted at www.despatchblog.com
There are only a handful of elections happening in London on 3 May all as the result of sitting councillors standing down. Considering the sheer campaigning powerhouse potential of the capital’s population it is surprising that these few seats are not being more highly contested. One seat to watch, if only for the celebrity value, is that of Marylebone High Street in the blue-as-they-come City of Westminster right in the heart of the capital. The by-election will seek a replacement for the Tory incumbent who stood down just over a month before polling day. Having triumphed in last year’s local elections with some 70% of the vote this ultra-safe Conservative seat may just be about to fall to Labour in what could be one of the most incredible swings in the capital’s history.
Instead of fielding a largely unknown local activist to stand in the seat Labour have put forward Dave Rowntree, a local resident but better known as the drummer from Blur, the iconic Britpop band. Fighting a creative online campaign against a frankly mistified local Consevative Party, also famous for his pro-file-sharing views, is leading the way with a series of online videos using YouTube not leaflets as his medium for communicating his message to the electorate. Check them out here and here. And it seems to be working. National and international media coverage has followed and the feeling is ‘good’ on the streets. He’ll have quite a mountain to climb to overturn the Tory majority but if his celebrity and his activism produces a Labour Gain on Thursday it could well be the only one in the capital, and only one of a handful across the country in what is universally expected to be a watershed poll for Labour nationally.
Cross-posted at Despatchblog.
The SNP argue that Independence will give Scotland the freedom to speak with its own voice in the world and to take its place at the top tables of the European Union and the United Nations. The SNP say that they will always uphold the rule of international law, believe that the war in Iraq was illegal and that they will always oppose wars waged without international legal authority. Also, they say that they will ensure that Scotland makes her contribution towards international peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.
So what would an independent Scotland, led by the SNP, Foreign Policy look like and what would be the likely implications for the UK’s Nato partners. One can only speculate at this time as this policy has not been fully explained by the SNP.
The SNP is the only mainstream political party in Europe to advocate withdrawal from NATO. Their 2007 Manifesto, although silent on this issue, states that “Together we can build a more prosperous nation, a Scotland that is a force for good, a voice for peace in our world. Free to bring Scottish troops home from Iraq. Free to remove nuclear weapons from Scotland’s shores”.
The SNP believes that Tony Blair has tied Britain too closely to the US and that Britain has become little more than a client of US foreign policy, with Tony Blair as the silent sidekick of the President.
Lisa Vickers, the new US Consul in Scotland, has questioned the effect of separation on American energy firms and criticised the SNP’s anti-Nato policy. She also speculated about whether an independent Scotland would become a member of the European Union.
On the future of US energy companies in a separate Scottish state, she questioned: “Would their situation change were Scotland independent?” The Consul went onto say that said the US would “probably” prefer the UK to remain united and insisted there were “various elements” of the SNP’s independence policy that had not been fully explained.
However, her most pointed criticisms were reserved for the SNP’s defence policy, which is for an independent Scotland not to be a member of Nato. The US consul said: “I don’t think it’s nearly that simple. I don’t think you just wake up one morning and say ‘we are going to pull out of Nato’. It doesn’t work like that. There are just so many different questions that would have to be answered. I don’t believe there are any countries that have pulled out of Nato.”
The Consul believes that such constitutional change could diminish the UK’s case for staying in the G8 and weaken the argument for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.
These comments provide valuable insights into the US government’s view on constitutional politics in Scotland.
It is doubtful that a change of Government would lead to a change in Ireland’s relationship with the US which is based not only on economics but on shared cultural links as a result of large scale US emigration to the US in the 19th and 20th century’s. Summers spent working in the US are an Irish right of passage and most of us of a certain age will have fond memories of the Irish quarters of New York, Boston, Chicago and San Fran. However that is not to say that Ireland does not share many of the European concerns about the war in Iraq and the practice of extraordinary rendition flights. There were large protests in Dublin at the start of the US-Iraq war and Irish public opinion has cooled from its former entirely positive view of the US. The days are long past when the two pictures of world leaders to be found in Irish homes were the Pope and President John F.Kennedy. However the tires which bind are still strong.
US firms in Ireland employ approximately 120,000 people while Irish firms in the US employ a similar amount of people. Iconic companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Accenture and Dell all have large operations and the image of Ireland as a the economic equivalent of US Aircraft carrier off the coast of Europe is not entirely inaccurate. Major Irish firms such as Kerry Group and CRH have traditionaly looked to the US when planning expansions so there exists a huge community of interest in keeping the relationship on a very positive keel.
Foreign Affairs rarely if ever features in Irish elections and I doubt very much that this will be different. However as this link from Richard Delevan’s blog makes clear, US consultants are having an influence on the election as indeed Irish consultants have had on European elections. Some years ago I mentioned to a friend that I had just come back from a project in Serbia (where I was working with the UNDP on Information Society issues) to be told that I should have a chat with PJ who had just got the Croatian government elected. PJ of course is the legendary PJ Mara the uber spindoctor of Fianna Fail who had indeed been active in Croatia and is now back in action in Ireland. In politics as in every other sphere we live in a increaseingly connected world.
There has been a lot of spin from all the parties in the run up to the ”Super Duper Thursday” elections on 03 May. To listen to certain Labour and Lib Dem friends of mine if either party is left with any councillors AT ALL in South East England on 04 May it will be a triumph of epic proportions. Similarly, to listen to Tory chums one could be left with the impression that anything over a couple of hundred gains in England and the party is well on its way to Downing Street - and of course, they expect to lose ALL their MSPs in Scotland blah blah blah…
Being as objective as I can (and I was a Lib Dem staffer for many years, so please bear that in mind) let’s try and define what ‘good’ genuinely looks like for the parties in May:
Labour
Governments of all colours get kicked at mid-term elections in the UK, Labour will claim. There is some justification for this…but only some. What matters is the degree of the kicking! If Labour lose fewer than 300 councillors in England it will indeed be a good result for them. 300 - 600 will be bad, but not awful. Anything over 600 will be a battering. Personally I think they could lose up to 700. They should remain the largest party in the Welsh Assembly, but will lose seats. The silver lining on their psephological cloud will be if they can remain the largest party in Scotland. To be overtaken by the SNP in conjunction with a battering England will be very bad news indeed. It is certainly a possibility.
Conservatives
The Conservatives will do well in England. No doubt about it. Most of the seats up for election are in the shire districts - their happiest hunting ground. So, the question is only how well. 500+ gains are a near certainty, less than that would be pretty odd giving the Government’s non-Midas touch at the moment. Anything over 750 gains and the Tories can be well-pleased. The crucial test is whether they can poll over 40%. Given that national opinion polls put them in the high 30s this is achievable. The bad news for David Cameron, if there is to be any, will be in Scotland. He is not that popular north of the border, his party has only 1 MP and a membership and activist base that has been comatose in recent years. If the Conservatives hold their 17 MSPs it will be reasonable, but this is already a low base to go down further from. As Oscar Wilde may have said “to lose one MSP may be considered a misfortune, but to lose two would be downright carelessness.” We shall see.
Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dems will certainly have a mixed set of results in these elections. I fully expect that they could lose 200+ seats in England. Anything less than that will be OK (though not good exactly), anything much higher would be bad news. This is the biggest round of elections in our political cycle; stretching the party’s resources more than their two bigger rivals. The Lib Dems are powerful campaigners, but they are most successful when they can target. Good news will come, they hope, from the devolved elections. Picking up seats in Wales is a possibility and will show the party is capable of building on their gains in the principality at the last General Election. Similarly in Scotland the party may gain seats. This is particularly impressive given that they have been in coalition government with Labour for the last 8 years. This would point to further gains in Scotland at the next General Election. Their fingers are crossed!
The Nationalists
Plaid Cymru should pick up a few seats in Wales, but will not come anywhere near Labour. All eyes are therefore on Scotland where opinion polls still point to substantial SNP gains. Anything over 40 seats will be very good for the Nats. Anything nearer to 50 will be a triumph! Labour have less than two weeks to turn it around….
With an outstanding rate of 85% of voters, France has managed to demonstrate that its democracy is probably livelier than ever. Kicking off all the extremes, both from the left and from the right, the three main candidates have also proved that the new generation of politicians was highly expected by the French public opinion, keeping in mind that:
The very popular British website politicalbetting.com (I highly recommend it for those interested in UK politics) contains an article by Sean Fear of the likely results of the local elections taking place in England in under a fortnight. I’d agree with much of his analysis in terms of councils likely to change hands.
For those unfamiliar with the English electoral landscape this adds up to the Conservatives doing very well in the South of England and the Midlands; the Lib Dems doing reasonably badly in the South but better in the North and Labour basically having a bad night of it everywhere. Like Sean I too believe that Tony Blair’s party will come third in the popular vote on election night behind both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Where I disagree with him (unfortunately from my perspective) is on his view that the Lib Dems will retain broadly the same number of council seats.
Given where we are in the electoral cycle, I can see the Lib Dems losing 200+ councillors on 03 May. This is not actually surprising - the party has made net gains of hundreds of seats in recent years and out of a total of almost 5000 councillors losing a couple of hundred is not so awful.
Mind you - no-one likes to lose, do they?!
I heard Jean-Pierre Raffarin (our ex-prime Minister) in Brussels 2 weeks ago. I would like to quote him to illustrate the dilemma with Bayrou. Raffarin was explaining that the trouble with Bayrou is that on very important dossiers such as energy, Bayrou would not be able to make any move. He would promote wind turbins to please the socialists/left but would power them with nuclear to get the support of the right.
Perhaps the French candidates could use a touch of James Carville as they head down the home stretch — after all as a native of Louisiana, the ragin cajun probably has some French ancestry in his background. With 40 percent of the population still undecided on which lever to pull this Sunday in the first round of the French elections maybe the candidates could use the help of Frederic Bastiat (renowned French economist). Because, all the candidates have danced around the most important issue facing France — it’s lagging economy.
As some of their best and brightest leave for the UK and America, all the candidates point to the effect, rather than the cause of the problem. Extremely high unemployment for young french men and women entering the workforce — particularly those of Middle East and African origin — a growing state payroll and employment laws that in effect enforce a job for life rule on the employer make for a perfect economic storm.
Who ever makes it to the second round should be thinking about what types of changes are needed to sustain the culture, lifestyle and economic prowess that has allowed France to maintain its swagger on the global stage. Will it be the reincarnation of Napoleon or Joan of Arc? Whom ever it is, let’s hope for the sake of the French citizens they have a plan. Otherwise the only ones reaping financial rewards from this election, will bet the bookies taking bets on the outcome of this very tight race.
The impact of the 2007 election cycle in five European states will be felt from Brussels to Beijing.
Edelman have invited our top European public affairs consultants to gather here and discuss the races, the candidates, the issues and what it all means.
Sponsored by Edelman.