results rumour of second UK election on 25 November 2010?

If the Parliamentary timetable for the Queen's speech is to be believed, then Parliament should reconvene on Tuesday 18th May and the Speech would be on Tuesday 25th May.

I wonder if this will be possible given the current blip in continuity, whilst some post election introspection takes place? What's the shortest time between elections? Someone will know. I'll hazard a guess at six months, so maybe 25th November would be a round six months from the speech making and could see a new Parliament up and running for 2011?

That's enough time for parties to re-organise and perhaps a more balanced set of voting practices to be devised.

All the politicians are pointedly saying they are working for the "National Interest" now, rather than their own agendas, so perhaps anything related to improving the representation of the people could be on their minds, rather than their own self-promotion?

(Approximate votes per seat: Labour = 33k ; Tory 35k; LibDem 120k)

counting the political boundaries

I've been looking at a few of the analyses of the polls and thought I'd spend five minutes doing my own. In many scenarios the numbers yield an interesting skew to the outcome.

Because of the adjustments to political boundaries and the non-proportional voting system, there are all kinds of unexpected splits that occur if there isn't an outright winner with half the seats and an outright majority.

Before the election, Labour has 345 seats, which is a proper majority of the 646 available. With the varied swings predicted, this could drop by 75-90 seats, spread between Conservatives (mainly) and Liberal Democrat (some).

Its interesting, because with the lowest percentage of the overall votes (27%), the Labour party could still finish with the most total seats of the three parties (259).

With a more evenly balanced split with the most votes going to a mobilised Conservative party (34%) then the next to the Lib Dems (30%) and the lowest to Labour (28%), we'd still see the most seats go to Labour at 267, then Conservative at 255.

And supposing the Lib Dems managed to get the most overall votes (33%), with Conservative at 32% and Labour at 27%, then we's still see Labour with the highest number of seats at 259, and Lib Dems with around 128.

Some of this doesn't seem quite right to me.

black ink shortage hits UK government

It's also worth having a play with the crowdsourcing experiment currently run by the Guardian.

I sifted through about 20 claims out of idle nosiness and found some 'petty cash' claims for over £200 (eg £240.09) but less than the £250 point at which things must be declared explicitly with documentation. Similarly there was one set of claims that repeated month by month with exactly the same amounts each time.

Not forgetting some tasty food bills amidst the varied claims for soft furnishings for indeterminate blacked-out residences.

brown election latest rumours

I should really be writing about something else today, but I can't help noticing that even the Scottish singing lady has been overshadowed by the Scottish talking man.

I see his current line is that we need to avoid chaos and keep the show on the road.

I may have a different view of chaos, so I suppose the small number of items I list below (last few weeks only), next to our illustrious leader (old photo, I'm afraid) officially do not constitute chaos.

Oh no.

economy deep in recession
factory closures
banking crisis
lawmakers' expense claims
tax money to pay MP accountants
snap resignations
individual Lords suspended
Royalty not invited to D-Day event
Cabinet resignations (Blears, Smith) before euro elections
Lords dosh for law change
bumper pensions for errant bankers
full salary and pension rights for ‘mistaken’ MPs
flipping houses to maximise expense claims
Speaker busted
lowest trust index ever for MPs
secret signonnow@hotmail.com plot to oust
meltdown(Telegraph), disarray(Independent), carnage(FT)

Feel free to reshuffle the deckchairs at will.

more UK election 11 July 2009 rumours started

If the Queen has quietly asked Gordon Brown to dissolve Parliament, then we need to work out the timetable. There's usually at least 30 days from dissolution to an election, which rules out most of June.

July has only been used once since 1918 and August and September have never been used because of the summer holidays and the way it would weird out the results.

So theoretically, the most likely month is October, which has been used the most times since 1918; six times in October, followed by five in May and four in June.

Now, if the level of upset was maximum and pitchforks marched upon Westminster, then a July date is still possible, but would require rather a lot of gearing up in a short time. I'm also wondering if a Speaker is needed during the dissolution process, because even that role seems a trifle fragile at the moment.

Technically, Gordon still has another year, with the last valid date of the current Parliament being 10 May 2010. Because of dissolution procedures, the election wouldn't need to be until Thursday 3 June 2010.

So will we get another year of Gordon and Co, or is there election fever in the wind?

We have the Euro elections and a few by-elections in a few days. I'm guessing Brown, Cameron, Clegg and the others are getting into huddles to think about timings and campaigning. In July, it would need to be 4th (oops - sensitive?), 11th or 18th.

And what if the Monarchy did call for the end of the current Parliament instead of it being Gordon's dice roll?