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October 06, 2006
Some quick news from around the world
As much as 90 per cent of end-game American mid-term campaigning thought to be negative.
An early contender for the lowest-blow award is Vernon Robinson, the Republican challenger for a House seat in North Carolina, who produced a video alleging that his opponent, Brad Miller, “pays for sex, but not for body armour for our troops.” Mr Miller “voted to spend your money to study the sex lives of Vietnamese prostitutes in San Francisco,” not to mention “the masturbation habits of old men” and “something called the Bisexual, Transgendered and Two-Spirited Aleutian Eskimos, whoever they are.”
Wouldn't happen under STV. (Or at least, it wouldn't help get one elected)
In Germany, the grand coalition is having troubles. Many of the troubles aren't because of the coalition (and, given that FPTP wouldn't have produced a decisive result in Germany either, not because of their MMP system), but there is a rather depressing tale of coalition government in there.
Politicians don’t decide policy on merit, but as part of the party battle, thus co-operating (even with a good piece of legislation) is not always in their best interest. This also apparently happens within parties:
"Ms Merkel seems unable even to make deals with her own party's powerful state premiers, some of whom seem more interested in replacing her than in settling policy differences."
From one grand coalition to another: Austria looks like following Germany's example. Not that Germany and Austria can teach us much about coalition government in relation to the UK. There's is a very different political culture, much keener on consensus politics.
Posted by pauldavies on October 06, 2006
