News roundup, 11 May 2026

- Municipal elections were held across the England on Thursday; Scotland and Wales held their parliamentary elections on the same day. The results show crushing defeats for Labour across much of the country. The blogger behind Council Estates Media seems to think Starmer's unwavering support of Israel has something to do with it; I'd say it's a stretch to say that's a big factor in the defeat, but it definitely says something about the way the party has gone when they tried to play the antisemitism card against Green leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish. Ironically, while the Greens did respectably well in the elections, the main beneficiary was Reform UK, which has a fair number of actual antisemites. While it's fair to say the swing away from Labour is an indictment of that party, the fact that a plurality of those voters chose Reform is an indictment of the English people. The Scots and Welsh did a better job in their parliamentary elections, though.

- Three more passengers on board that Dutch plague ship now moored in the Canary Islands have tested positive for hantavirus, all after flying home. The incubation period for this virus is substantial; four Canadians who were on the ship have been ordered to isolate for 21 days.

- An Edmonton couple on vacation in Mexico got notifications from WestJet saying that their flight home from Los Angeles was cancelled; they had to be rerouted through Victoria and got home some 16 hours late. Under Canadian legislation this is a long enough delay to trigger compensation as per the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) - but the airline claims to be exempt because the cancellation was due to an unexpected safety-related issue with the aircraft. The problem is, the aircraft in question had been grounded several days previously; WestJet apparently switched which aircraft was to be used for the flight immediately before cancelling it in the hope of getting around paying compensation to passengers.

- Jana Ronne, a high school teacher in BC, got in hot water after confronting a student for the use of the word "pussy" as an insult. She responded by saying "Do you think women are weak? Women can be stronger than men"; somehow the discussion got steered into religion, and she responded to this by disputing the validity of religion (not clear how she got there; I suspect the kid cited the Bible/Koran/whatever). Subsequently she appears to have brought up the incident in class, unprompted. Apparently this made students who witnessed the interaction feel "uncomfortable", and they complained to the vice principal; the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation has given her a one day suspension of her teaching certificate and forced her to take courses on "creating a positive classroom" and "intercultural dialogue".

- A motorcyclist was seriously injured in a collision with a car on Scott Road, which forms the boundary between the cities of Surrey and Delta, BC. What is remarkable about this case, though, is that the motorcycle somehow ended up hanging from a traffic signal standard.

News roundup, 20 March 2026

- Iran's retaliatory measures seem to have escalated. A strike on natural gas facilities in Qatar has reportedly wiped out 17% of the country's export capacity for at least three years. Whether the MAGAts will be able to draw a connection between their Dear Leader's war and the inevitable increase in the cost of home heating is an open question. While a handful of those people might actually change their ways, the best possible outcome for most of them would be for them to become sufficiently disillusioned that they don't bother to vote anymore. And some will stubbornly keep voting for Trump and his associates out of sheer spite, taking consolation in the fact that it's directly hurting people that they hate - assuming that there are even meaningful elections by then.

- Generally, in a functioning democracy law enforcement is supposed to get a warrant to access private information such as cellphone location data. But what if this data is already being sold by data brokers? The FBI under Kash Patel has been buying data from said brokers in order to track people; defenders of the practice argue that this is publicly available information and thus a warrant should not be necessary. Maybe the real question we should be asking is whether this sort of data should be allowed to be sold on the open market in the first place. For instance, if the authorities can buy this data, then presumably so can a stalker.

- London mayor Sadiq Khan is calling on Labour to campaign on rejoining the EU in the next general election. Certainly some recent polling suggests that this might be a good move; the extent to which this would translate into actual votes is far from clear, though.

- The war in Iran has helped to focus the minds of European leaders on renewable energy. Trump wants to export more American natural gas to Europe, but the spike in prices instead incentivized Europeans to try to replace natural gas with renewables.

- In some parts of the world, you can buy solar panels that just plug into a regular outlet and feed power back into your house's wiring. In some US states, electric utilities are trying to keep them out, claiming that it's a safety concern for their lineworkers (suggesting that it could still lead to power being supplied to a line that a worker thinks is dead because it's not being powered by the utility). Advocates say that this hasn't been a problem in other places and suspect that what the utilities are really concerned about is the "safety" of their shareholders' investments.

- Russia has issued new guidelines for physicians, calling on doctors to ask women how many children they want and to refer them to psychologists if they give "zero" as an answer. The country has already imposed restrictions on abortion and prohibited "childfree propaganda", but evidently those measures aren't doing the job in bringing the birth rate up to a level acceptable to Putin.

- Two Texas-based scientists have found a way to make usable soil from simulated lunar surface material, by combining it with vermicompost and certain fungi which are effective at sequestering heavy metals so they aren't taken up by plants so much. They've managed to grow chickpeas to the point of producing seed, though the success of those seeds in producing new plants remains to be seen.

News roundup, 5 July 2024

- Kier Starmer will be the UK's Prime Minister as his Labour Party has scored a decisive victory over the Conservatives in yesterday's election. They are projected to win 412 seats, though a number of seats still have not been decided. The Conservatives are forecast to win 122 seats, and the centrist Liberal Democrats 71. The SNP is down to 10 seats, while the Greens, Reform UK (the former UKIP) and Plaid Cymru win four each. This is Labour's second biggest win ever after Tony Blair's victory in 1997; a detailed breakdown is here.

- In France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally are now expected to fall short of a majority in the second round of parliamentary elections this weekend, so France is safe from a fascist takeover for the time being. That's not to say there aren't problems, as evidenced by a disturbing number of threats and acts of violence against candidates and party activists in recent days. Nonetheless, Emmanuel Macron's roll of the dice may have paid off.

- In the US, Joe Biden is down two points following last week's disastrous debate. Interestingly, Trump didn't actually make any gains, suggesting that there may be a firm limit to his support. Unfortunately that's still more than enough for him to win unless something changes, and Biden is still vowing to stay in the race (so far at least). His campaign points to polling that suggests that none of the proposed replacements would fare significantly better than him - but they have far less name recognition, something that would change if one of them became the candidate. New reports that Trump is being accused of sexually assaulting a 13 year old ought to be decisive but probably won't convince his diehard supporters to change.

- TVO's Steve Paikin suggests that Justin Trudeau's best chance of holding onto power might be to revisit the electoral reform that he previously rejected. In principle this might well be true, although in practice it would be very difficult to actually implement this in time for the election. While there is no legal requirement for a referendum, making such a sweeping change without one might be a bridge too far, politically (and if one were somehow held, it would be seen as a referendum on Justin Trudeau by too many people). Plus, even if the change were somehow made in time for the next election, the Bloc would effectively become kingmaker, and they cannot be trusted not to back the Conservatives.

- Manitoba Hydro warns that millions of dollars of infrastructure investment are required to maintain the reliability of the power grid in the province. This includes upgrades to the power plants themselves (one of which dates back to 1911) as well as towers, lines, etc.

- Liquor Control Board of Ontario employees are striking as of today, something expected to greatly increase sightings of pink elephants in the province. Issues include too much dependence on part-time workers as well as plans to put alcohol in convenience stores.

- The City of Winnipeg has approved over 6,600 new housing units, a figure expected to rise to 8,000 by the end of November. Of those, at least 123 are considered "affordable", though the devil is in the details with something like that. Actual construction of these units will doubtless take a few years.

- A Toronto police detective with the force's drug squad was arrested in neighbouring Mississauga and charged with impaired driving, leaving the scene of an accident, fleeing police, and possession of cocaine and meth. Two Peel Regional Police officers were reportedly injured in the course of the arrest.

- A 72 year old man in Florida has been arrested for shooting a Walmart delivery drone as it passed over his house; he apparently believed that he was under surveillance. Say what you will, but anyone who can hit a moving target 75 feet up with a 9 mm pistol is a pretty good shot.

News roundup, 21 June 2024

- Chris Skidmore, who served as the UK's energy minister under Theresa May, has vowed to vote Labour for the first time in his life in protest against the current Tory government turning climate into a "culture war" issue.

- Many Liberal MPs think it's time for Justin Trudeau to move on if there's to be any chance in salvaging the party's chances for the election. One unnamed MP said that "if we saw Justin Trudeau jump into a river to save two children being chased by a crocodile, people would say it was his fault", and like it or not, that is probably the case.

- A bill recently passed by Parliament, and now awaiting royal assent, will require companies who make claims about their environmental policies in advertising to provide evidence to back up their claims. Seems reasonable to most, but the Alberta government is up in arms about this; presumably they fear that the oil industry will collapse if they aren't allowed to lie to the public about what they're doing. An oilsands alliance has already removed all content from their website in anticipation of the bill becoming law.

- A search of the Prairie Green Landfill for at least two of Jeremy Skibicki's victims will commence in the fall, once a "targeted zone" where the remains are most likely buried can be identified.

- A man is suing Loblaws and the City of Winnipeg after an incident in 2022 in which he says that two police officers serving as security at the Superstore on Gateway Road made racially offensive comments, apparently under the impression that he was indigenous (he isn't) and then roughed him up when he tried to take photos.

- A strip club in Guelph, which was built in 1891, has been granted a heritage designation.

- Longtime Winnipeg broadcaster Larry Updike has died.

Gillard retains power in Australia

She's got enough support from the independents to hang on:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she will pump almost $10 billion into regional programs after today scraping back into power with the support of two key independents.

Ms Gillard has pledged to work tirelessly for the Australian people and says she will try and find common ground with the Coalition as Labor heads into its second term in government.

Two independents today broke the political deadlock by giving their votes to Ms Gillard in a Labor minority Government. She has advised Governor-General Quentin Bryce of the developments.

After more than a fortnight of suspense, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor revealed their intention to give Labor their crucial votes, meaning it has secured the 76 seats needed to rule.

The third independent, Bob Katter, had earlier decided to support the Coalition but it was not enough to install Tony Abbott as prime minister.

From the ABC.

Independents win significant concessions in Australia

It looks like the major parties are willing to do quite a lot to get the support of the independents:

They just had to ask. The three country independents got all they wanted from the PM. Tony Abbott's response was a little more qualified but they did well out of him too. There's nothing like desperation to make leaders generous to a fault to those whose support they need.

The most fundamental concession is that both Gillard and Abbott say they would not have an election before August 2013. Gillard is even willing to ''work with'' the independents in setting the precise date.

For those used to Victoria's fixed term, this mightn't seem much. But federally, terms are flexible and the PM's ability to decide election timing is an important power. Giving it away is no small thing.

From the Sydney Morning Herald. What's interesting, though, is what Abbott is not willing to agree to:

The scrapping today, however, will be over what Abbott would not agree to - the independents want his promises officially costed.

It's not surprising he is resisting this. If Treasury/Finance found holes in them - as is very likely - this would undermine not just Abbott's credibility but his pitch to the independents.

Interesting. And the fact that Gillard has not resisted this doesn't exactly make Abbott look very good... but assuming some coalition appears, that won't matter (it will probably be forgotten by the time the next election rolls around in three years). I'm inclined to think Gillard will ultimately get the nod from the independents actually; despite being ex-Nationals, they seem to be on poor terms with their former colleagues. Also, a Labour government could accomplish much more than a Liberal-National one, because the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate and thus a Liberal-National government would have a hard time getting legislation through the upper house.

The thing is, whoever does form the government will likely have a majority of one, which will make for some interesting times. If nothing else, MPs on both sides of the house are likely to have excellent attendance in the next three years...

A side note -- those unfamiliar with the quirks of Australia's political system may find the coverage of this minority parliament particularly confusing, because the possibility exists of the independents forming a coalition with the Coalition. The existence of a long-term coalition between the urban and rural right (the Liberals and Nationals respectively) seems to be made possible by instant-runoff voting; the Liberals and Nationals simply trade preferences, whereas they'd be spoilers for each other under FPTP.

And a further tangent from that -- how would IRV play out if introduced in this country? I'm not entirely sure. At the federal level I suspect it would lead to a lot of NDP-Liberal coalitions, though at the provincial level I could see the Manitoba Liberals supporting the Tories rather than the NDP.

Minority parliament in Australia

It appears no party will be able to command a majority in the lower house of Australia's House of Representatives:

With a single seat, Hasluck in Western Australia, still in doubt, Labor has 73 and the Coalition 72 of the 150 seats in parliament's lower house.

Brisbane was this morning called for the Liberal National Party's Teresa Gambaro, unseating incumbent Labor MP Arch Bevis.

Denison in Tasmania was also in doubt, but was this morning declared for Labor by the Australian Electoral Commission, dashing the hopes of high-profile independent Andrew Wilkie for a surprise win.

In Hasluck, the sitting Labor member Sharryn Jackson trails the Liberals Ken Wyatt.

Tony Burke, the Gillard government's minister for sustainable population, says he has faith Mr Katter, Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor will reach a deal to form a stable government.

From the Sydney Morning Herald. This story raises several issues:

• Australia has almost 2/3 the population of Canada. So why does its lower house have less than half the number of seats? That doesn't sound like good local representation to me (and I thought that was the point of single-member constituencies!)
  
• The instant-runoff voting system used in Australia hasn't helped minor parties to the extent that the casual observer would expect. Sure, there are four independents, but only one Green has been elected, and nobody from the other parties. I have heard it claimed that IRV can be even more unfair than first past the post; these results seem to support that thesis. Their upper house has multi-member STV, and the Greens have the balance of power in that house, so it's not like they don't get support, but they are badly underrepresented in the lower house. Nick Clegg, take note!
• Regarding particular results, it seems that most of the independents are former Nationals, which could mean that, on the one hand, they'd be disinclined to support Labour if they could avoid it, but on the other hand, there may be some bad blood between them and the Liberals. If they do decide to support the Liberals, they'll have a hard time getting their agenda through the Senate, while if they support Labour it may not be for very long. So whatever government forms when the smoke clears is likely to be short lived.
  

Interesting developments in European politics

Firstly, Gordon Brown has decided to take one for the team:

The British political landscape was transformed last night as an unbridled bidding war for power led to Gordon Brown proffering his resignation as prime minister in a dramatic attempt to secure Labour a power-sharing government with the Liberal Democrats.

Brown's surprise announcement on the steps of No 10 prompted an extraordinary Tory counter-offer to the Lib Dems: a referendum on the alternative vote electoral system, and a coalition government with seats for Nick Clegg's party in the cabinet. The proposed Tory coalition deal would last at least two parliamentary sessions.

The hurried Tory offer, previously seen as completely beyond the ideological pale for the party, was swallowed by shell-shocked Tory MPs.

Cameron said he would whip a vote in parliament to ensure there was a referendum on the alternative vote, but the Tories would then be free to campaign to keep first past the post in the referendum itself.

From the Guardian. If Clegg is as smart as I think he is, he won't bite on the "alternative vote" system, which is another term for instant-runoff voting. While it can be viewed as a special case of the single transferable vote system preferred by the Lib Dems, it is one in which proportionality is sacrificed for more local representation. To my mind this system is at best only marginally better than FPTP and under some circumstances can be worse (if introduced in Canada, for instance, it would likely lead to a never-ending string of Liberal majorities). I suspect that Clegg would probably rather work with Labour than the Conservatives anyhow, and with Brown out of the way he'll have more credibility making such a deal.

This isn't the only big thing to happen across the pond either. Angela Merkel just suffered a significant setback in Germany:

Results from Sunday's poll show Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won 34.6 percent of the vote, down a full 10 percentage points from the last election in 2005 and their worst showing ever in the state. The center-left Social Democrats (SPD) were only marginally behind, winning 34.5 percent of the vote.

The business-friendly Free Democrats, the CDU's current coalition partner in North Rhine-Westphalia and at the national level, gained half a percentage point, winning 6.7 percent of the vote. The environmentalist Greens did the best, almost doubling their showing from the last state election, securing 12.1 percent. The Left Party won 5.6 percent, and is now poised to enter the NRW state parliament for the first time.

The election outcome means that the opposition Social Democrats and the Green party could narrowly form a governing coalition in Germany's most populous state with a slim one-vote majority, but would likely require support from the Left Party.

From Deutsche Welle. What's critical to this is that state governments appoint members of the Bundesrat, the upper house of the German parliament, and as a result of this Merkel is expected to lose control of that house. And a big reason for this is Germany's reluctant approval of the bailout of Greece, which pleased the markets but had a rather different effect on the electorate. We'll have to see how this goes; Merkel is not up for reelection until 2013, unless her coalition somehow collapses, so she could find herself stymied for quite some time by an uncooperative Bundesrat.

New kid on the block in UK politics

Well, he's not really new, having been leader of the Liberal Democrats for over two years, but for most of that time he wasn't really seen as a going concern. That may be changing:

A week ago this morning, it was still possible to refer to Nick Clegg as a fringe candidate, the nerdy leader of a third-place British party who could walk down city streets without being recognized.

What has happened to him in the past seven days has no precedent in British politics, and few in elections anywhere. You probably have to reach to the world of reality television, where fellow Briton Susan Boyle rose, in similar one-night fashion, from spinsterdom to celebrity.

As of Thursday, Mr. Clegg, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, is the most popular politician in Britain, with his party either leading or tied with the Tories throughout the week. An Ipsos MORI poll Wednesday showed his party tied with the Conservatives at 32 per cent, with Labour at 28 per cent – a doubling of the Liberal Democrat standing last week. Other polls had his party ahead.

“We have never seen anything like this sort of an instant rise before in the history of British elections, and it means that the entire system has changed, quite literally overnight,” said Bobby Duffy of the London office of polling firm Ipsos MORI. “What had been a fairly staid election to choose between Gordon Brown and David Cameron has suddenly sparked into life, and nobody knows where things will go now.”

From the Globe. If Clegg manages to take power, or even win the balance of power in a minority parliament, he could leave a permanent mark on British politics. After all, the Liberal Democrats have advocated electoral reform for many years; a switch to PR would have a dramatic effect on all future elections.

UK to get a taste of minority parliaments?

The opinion polls are starting to look that way:

A ComRes survey for the Independent showed the Tory lead over Labour narrowing to five points in the past month. A YouGov survey for the Sun gave the Tories a seven-point margin, well up on the weekend's low of two but still short of the double-digit lead David Cameron needs to be confident of a Commons majority.

Both surveys were conducted before the Tory peer and fundraiser Lord Ashcroft revealed he had "non-dom" tax status yesterday.

The polls reinforce the recent trend showing Labour gaining ground on the Tories as the election, expected on 6 May, approaches.

The Independent survey was taken over the weekend, when Cameron admitted to his party's spring conference that the Conservatives faced a "real fight" to win power.

While the findings give the Tories a bigger share of the popular vote, the poll rating suggests Labour would be returned to government with the most MPs under the first-past-the-post electoral system.

This would leave Labour short of an outright majority, however, and so it would be forced to strike deals with the smaller parties for support on controversial issues.

Fears of a hung parliament sent sterling temporarily to a nine-month low against the dollar yesterday following another YouGov poll at the weekend suggesting the Tory lead was down to just two points.

From the Guardian. Depending on how far short Labour falls, who would be the most likely partner in a coalition or accord? I'm thinking the Liberal Democrats (if Labour isn't too far short of a majority, Respect is a theoretical possibility, but that seems like too much to hope for). What kind of concessions might the Lib Dems extract? This could have interesting consequences, especially if electoral reform is on the table.

UK Conservatives may be losing their edge

They're still ahead of Labour, but they might not get the majority they want:

The ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph sees the Conservative lead narrowing since last month with David Cameron's party down one point on 39 per cent, Labour unchanged on 30 per cent and the Liberal Democrats up two on 20 per cent.

If repeated in at the general election there would be a hung parliament, with the Tories around 14 seats short of a majority. It is the first ICM poll to put the party below 40 per cent since last June, when the party lost support in the wake of the MPs' expenses scandal.

Source. This could get interesting, depending on how insistent the Liberal Democrats are about matters such as electoral reform and the status of the House of Lords.

Heathrow third runway gets go-ahead

Which is kind of odd; given that the UK's economy is almost as bad as that of the US, who the hell can afford to fly anyhow?

The transport secretary, Geoff Hoon, gave the go-ahead to a third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow airport today as opponents promised a decade of legal protests and direct action.

Hoon brushed off concerns over the environmental impact of the decision to announce that a third runway should be built by 2020, adding an estimated 400 flights a day at the west London site and increasing annual passenger numbers through the airport from 66 million to around 82 million.

"Doing nothing will damage our economy and will have no impact whatsoever on climate change," he told the Commons.

However the government attached three conditions to the announcement, alongside confirmation that a company would be formed to build a high-speed rail line from London to Birmingham via Heathrow. The three conditions were:

• The third runway will operate at half its capacity when it opens in 2020, raising the total number of flights from 480,000 to 600,000, rather than the 702,000 intended

• Aircraft using the new runway will have to meet strict greenhouse gas emissions standards

• Total carbon emissions from UK aviation must fall below 2005 levels by 2050

"This gives us the toughest climate change regime for aviation anywhere in the world," said Hoon.

From the Guardian. The bit about requiring aircraft using the new runway meet "strict greenhouse gas emissions standard" is a bit odd. Will they refuse to allow half-empty aircraft to use the runway? Will they only allow turboprops to use it? Somehow I doubt it.

Gordon Brown's approach to the economic crisis

He's taking a decidedly Keynesian direction:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown swept aside three decades of economic orthodoxy with tax increases on the rich and plans that will double Britain’s national debt.

Brown’s proposals yesterday to mitigate fallout from the global economic slump would cost 25.6 billion pounds ($38.7 billion) in the U.K.’s biggest round of stimulus since 1988.

The plan, which will result in the largest budget deficit among the Group of Seven industrialized nations, represents a retreat from policies that have shaped the British economy since Conservative Margaret Thatcher’s 12-year tenure that began in 1979. Brown’s predecessor Tony Blair called himself a proponent of “New Labour” and advocated policies Thatcher had promoted, including spending restraint, low debt and tax cuts for the rich.

“It is back to the 70s,” said Bill Jones, a political scientist at the University of Manchester. “It’s a return to the two-party divide and a temporary end to consensus politics. It’s like Labour has suddenly burst out of its straitjacket.”

Labour’s traditional union supporters backed the proposal by Brown, 57, to impose a new 45 percent tax on those earning more than 150,000 pounds a year, while opposition Conservatives accused him of irresponsibility for running up debt that will exceed 1 trillion pounds by 2014.

From here. The extra tax on the rich is long overdue; I can't comment, though, on his debt proposal. It might be a good idea, but it might also be a very bad idea, and whether it's good or bad depends partly on what international investors think. As noted previously, I suspect part of the reason why the US has gotten away with running up huge debts is that said investors are reluctant to bet against the US dollar; the fate of the pound, though, is a lot less critical on an international level, so they might well just pull the plug on the UK. On the other hand, anti-Keynesian sentiment may have declined somewhat since Bob Rae tried this approach in the early 1990s, and it might significantly mitigate the worst effects of the crisis on Britain's population. The situation definitely bears watching; the world economy is in very bad shape indeed, and if Brown can mitigate this to a noticeable degree, a lot of people will want to follow his lead.