Politics

Excel D’Hondt Proportional Representation Calculator

 Steven Kellow    Politics  

Download Looking for a Sainte-Laguë calculator? Try here. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, which allows you to share and adapt the material for non-commercial purposes as long as attribution is provided and that the same license applies to your work.   Proportional representation is a great thing, because it allows political parties to have a fairer share of seats in a parliament/assembly/council in relation to their share of the vote rather than the rather unfair share of seats usually — Read more →

The Catalonia question

 Steven Kellow    Politics

On Sunday, Catalonia held its own self-determination referendum as part of the movement there for independence.  The similarities with the recent “Scottish referendum” may appear to be very clear, but the situation in Catalonia is far more controversial, confused and potentially impactful than it was in Scotland. The fact that theirs was not an independence referendum in its own right shows the first key difference.  Despite intentions to hold a binding vote on whether the region should break away from Spain it was blocked by — Read more →

Opinion Poll Centre

 Steven Kellow    Politics  ,

Opinion polls are the heartbeat of day-to-day politics, as they give the politicians an objective look at what their public wants that they can use to map out their policies for government or for their next elections.  They are second only to actual voting and elections in terms of indicators of success or failure and are to be taken with interest and seriousness by anyone with an interest in politics.  For me, they are a perfect mix of politics and statistics – and are extremely — Read more →

Lamont the first casualty of Labour’s decline

 Steven Kellow    Politics

Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont resigned in a shock announcement on Friday night, citing too much interference from the Westminster party in affairs north of the border which left her position “untenable”. However, the more interesting revelation from Lamont’s departure was that she likened the party’s Westminster MPs to “dinosaurs” who were getting in the way of what she perceived as much-needed progress on the issue of devolution.  Labour’s proposals of further powers for Scotland are by far the weakest of the five Scottish parties, — Read more →

What’s next for Scotland?: My Smith Commission submission

 Steven Kellow    Politics  

In the wake of last month’s referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron appointed Lord Smith of Kelvin to head a commission looking at the issue of devolving more powers to Scotland including which powers should be devolved and how the process is handled.  Politicians from both the Yes and No parties have been invited to participate, with their detailed submissions now available to read, and just as importantly so have the people of Scotland.  Until the 31st of October, absolutely anyone can put their own view — Read more →

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