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Past precedent, future Presidents…

For those feeling starved of party election contests, the Lib Dems might just have a morsel to stave off the hunger pangs pending the Big One, Labour’s Brown v Someone battle.

Simon Hughes (pictured), the current party President, is nearing the end of his first two-year term of office, and is eligible for re-election for one further term. The question is: will he re-stand, and if he does will anyone challenge him?

When last the post was up for grabs, in 2004, Simon won an impressive mandate: 24,333 (71%) Lib Dem members chose him over fellow MP, Lembit Öpik, in an election which saw a pretty healthy 47% turn-out. But, prior to that, you have to go back a decade, to 1994, for the previous contested election.

Which may suggest the post of President is not exactly the most coveted of roles – so what is it the President is expected to do? Well, officially s/he “shall be the principal public representative of the party and shall chair the Federal Executive”. Or, as Simon has rather more snappily put it, the job is “to be the voice of party members within the party, and the voice of the party to the outside world”.

Two aspects may well arouse greater interest in a contested election this time. The first, and most obvious, is the opportunity it affords any MP thinking of a future leadership contest to raise their profile within the party. The happy precedent here would be Charles Kennedy, who topped the poll twice, in 1990 and 1992, enjoying embarrassingly Stalinist votes of 82% and 70% respectively.

However, the presidential path is not always paved with gold. Simon’s first year as President appeared not to stand him in good stead during his second unsuccessful run for the leadership, with the previously less well-known Chris Huhne instead emerging as the activists’ favourite. Nor did Lembit’s failed presidential campaign strengthen his base of support within the party.

That the Lib Dems’ leader and deputy leader are both men in their 60s will certainly increase the pressure on one of the party’s up-and-coming female MPs to throw their hat into the ring. Lynne Featherstone, Susan Kramer, Jo Swinson and Jenny Willott (for example) all have loyal followings, and each would be an asset at the party’s top table.

There is, though, a second possible aspect which may pique interest. There is no reason why the President must be a Parliamentarian – though the need to have time, relevant experience and a public profile will likely limit the pool of possible candidates who may wish to stand on an “activists’ ticket”. In any David versus Goliath battle, a fair few Lib Dem members will be hardwired to root for the underdog. And on a 40-50% turn-out anything might happen.

Nominations for the presidency open on 4th September, and close on the 27th September. If the Presidency is contested, the all-member ballot will take place between 11th October and 3rd November. There’s no betting market as yet, but it would provide gamblers with a diversion from the future of the Labour party.

Stephen Tall is a Lib Dem councillor in Oxford. He runs his own website, www.stephentall.org.uk, and blogs at A Liberal Goes A Long Way.

Who will be the 2006 laureate – or laureates?

An interesting market which politicalbetting contributors were discussing yesterday for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, to be announced on 13 October. Like many of the bookies’ novelty markets, there’s room for oddsmakers to have some fun. One doubts much money is being taken on Hugo Chávez or Oprah Winfrey.

The favourite, at 5/1 with Paddy Power, is Martti Ahtisaari (pictured), the former Social Democrat President of Finland who has taken various international roles since leaving office. He served on the commission overseeing the decommissioning of IRA weapons in Northern Ireland, and most recently led the negotiations that delivered a treaty this month between the Indonesian government and the rebel movement on Aceh.

A strong CV for the prize? Probably, but the prize is not always easy to predict, and even if Ahtisaari wins he may not be alone. If the award committee is particularly concerned to recognise the Aceh treaty, a joint award for Ahtisaari and the Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono may result. Susilo is himself 6/1 second favourite. Punters should take note that the bookies would settle a joint award using dead heat rules – in other words, your odds would be halved if the prize went jointly to two winners, and cut even more if it were shared more widely.

My thanks to the commenters who began this discussion yesterday, particularly SBS and John O.

Philip Grant
Guest editor

Mike Smithson returns on 10th September.

The market is writing off the old men of the Parti Socialiste

The British press has revived its irregular interest in French politics over the weekend, enjoying what can be painted as some bitchy speeches from the platform at the Socialist party’s “summer university” in La Rochelle. The ire of the party’s senior “elephants” is mostly aimed (or at least interpreted to be aimed) at Ségolène Royal (pictured). According to the polls, Royal is the runaway preference of the electorate for the party’s presidential nomination next year, but her lead hasn’t caused her rivals to give up hope. The field is still crowded with putative candidates, including Lionel Jospin, François Hollande (Royal’s partner), Jack Lang, Laurent Fabius and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Jospin, the 2002 nominee who was eliminated in the first round of the presidental election, gave a speech which, judging by the coverage in the Telegraph and Independent, brought forth Paltrowesque tears. His call for a campaign where “ideas have to be explained” probably overstates his own powers as a persuasive explainer, but is the kind of message which goes down well among the committed activists of a party wherever it lies on the ideological map.

Jospin – and the other elephants – may not come across as very compelling to the French electorate. But even if none of them can actually seize the nomination, they may still disrupt and embitter the party enough to knock Royal out of the race. And this is where the betting markets seem to have it wrong; Royal is just under 2/1 on Betfair to win the presidency, boulevards ahead of any other socialist. This looks unattractive when the nomination is still in question. By contrast, Nicolas Sarkozy, a little ahead at 5/4 favourite, seems much more assured of being the centre-right’s candidate, with his one-time nearest rival, Dominique de Villepin, involved in a messy libel case over the “Clearstream affair”.

Real betting value now might come from identifying the potential dark horses on the socialist side.

Philip Grant
Guest editor

Mike Smithson returns on 10th September.

A guest contribution from Andrea

At the beginning of August the Labour NEC election results for the CLPs division were announced. Members can elect six members to the party ruling body and 16 candidates were contesting the election: the two main slates, “Grassroots Alliance” (the Left wing slate) and “Labour First” (the so called “loyalist” slate), were joined in the race by a handful of independent candidates.

The result showed 4 candidates (Black, Shawcroft, Willsman and Wolfgang) from Grassroots Alliance being elected and 2 from Labour First (Wheeler and Reeves).

In the 2004 election 3 successful candidates were from the Grassroots Alliance and 3 from the Milibank slate. So it’s an improvement for the left wing slate that for the first time since 1998 has 4 out of 6 members directly elected. (They had held 4 seats at times in the more recent past, but only after various members resigned their seats and so the next-ranking candidates got in their place).

The poll was topped (as it was in 2004) by Ann Black. Not a surprise, considering she’s extremely hardworking and the most “mainstream” among GA candidates allowing her to get votes outside the “left” of the party.

Grassroots’ Christine Shawcroft (a long standing NEC member and on the Labour Left Briefing editorial board) and Peter Willsman (a leading figure in the “Campaign for Labour Party Democracy” organization) came second and third. They increased their total vote even though turnout was down.

Richmond’s most famous heckler, Walter Wolfgang (pictured), came in 4th place. Labour First’s candidates Peter Wheeler (Salford CLP chairman and Amicus officer) and Ellie Reeves (former National Chair of Labour Students) got the last two places on the NEC.

The election can be seen as a win for the Left of the party. The Grassroots Alliance slate was probably better organized and Labour First suffered from not fielding this time two vote-winning candidates from previous contests (Ruth Turner and Shahid Malik). It must be said that also the Grassroots Alliance “lost” a high profile candidate (Mark Seddon) this time, but Walter Wolfgang proved a better replacement than some new candidates. like Philomena Muggins (yes, I know, she sounds like a Harry Potter character. But I swear she’s real!) on the Labour First slate.

Some commentators painted the result as a defeat for Blair and the leadership. If on one hand it’s true that they aren’t probably welcoming monthly meetings with Walter Wolfgang and Christine Shawcroft, and it’s hardly a good result for Labour First, on the other hand I think the NEC election shouldn’t be over-estimated, especially because of the turnout.

It reached a record low: just 20.3% party members voted this year. The total score got by Ann Black this year would have placed a candidate just in 11th place in 2002. The poor turnout certainly shows a lack of interest among the membership. Labour should hope that it’s just for internal party elections and factions and it’s not a general lack of enthusiasm toward the party. Added to a declining party membership, disaffected members can be fatal at the next GE when the party will need many motivated party members in the streets to fight the Tories, the Lib Dems, the Nats and all other parties.

A revealing comment was made by Christine Shawcroft in the run up of the 2005 GE: “We are concentrating resources on national call centres and mail shots because the Party has never been so short of active members, and CLPs are reporting that there are no troops on the ground for knocking on the doors or even delivering the leaflets”. Polls are already indicating that Labour voters are less willing to turnout in a GE, so the same trend should be avoided among members.

This lack of interest by the membership should be an alarm bell for the party, and certainly not overlooked and ignored, but addressed (maybe by the new leadership if the handover is next year) by trying to encourage members to engage more with party activities.

Some on the Left tried to point it out that the result shows that they’ve a base to work from for the future leadership and deputy leadership race. It must be remembered that turnout will be much higher in a leadership ballot, voting for a NEC seat is not like voting for a Prime Minister (because Labour will be electing a PM, not just a leader) and that fighting Brown, Reid or Johnson isn’t the same as competing against Lorna Fitzsimons.

Andrea is an Italian student and one of politicalbetting.com’s most prolific contributors.