@robfordmancs
Politics Professor, University of Manchester. Author of "The British General Election of 2024" & "Brexitland". All takes, good & bad, are mine only. My Substack, "The Swingometer", is here: https://swingometer.substack.com/ https://www.robertford.net/
They polled >33% in 2006 and mostly in the 20s thereafter but then the Greens ate, digested and reordered their lunch. They were reliably over 30% reaching 37.5% fifty years ago. It’s never been a place they had any hope of running, but just scraping past the 5% hurdle is quite the demise.
Was also YouGov - they called it”Tory pollster”
Dominant was wrong word - SPD have been weak in this state for longer than I realised. But that in itself tells a story - party system changes, once established, can last
The AfD performs particularly strongly in parts of rural Baden-Württemberg affected by prospects of manufacturing layoffs (especially in areas reliant on automotive & mechanical engineering industries). Constituencies with higher manufacturing employment show a very strong shift toward the AfDs.
AfD gains are also notably lower in areas with higher shares of residents with tertiary education. Conversely, this suggests stronger shifts toward the AfD in municipalities with larger shares of low- and medium-skilled workers.
Fascinating thread - one thing that leapt out for me was a formerly dominant centre left party being squeezed by Greens in diverse graduate heavy cities and by the radical right in economically insecure manufacturing towns. Certain patterns keep repeating
1) The incumbent (and very centrist) Greens narrowly won the election. This was driven in part by further gains in urban centers & university towns as Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, which were already strongholds in 2021. By contrast, they suffered larger losses in smaller, more rural municipalities.
On Sunday, one of Germany’s largest states went to the polls in a closely contested election. What can we learn from the results & how do they relate to looming deindustrialization in one of Germany’s industrial heartlands? A thread with some decriptive patterns from data on 1,101 municipalities. 🧵
My two party system, it is very sick.
Sure. But none of us would have to care any more.
Today’s fun fact: the reason shipping lanes in the Baltic are so damn narrow is that there are anywhere from thirty to one hundred THOUSAND unexploded mines in the waterway from the World Wars, and the lanes are where the bottom has been swept
One upside of the potentially imminent demise of the Labour Party would be an end to the Labour factions forever war (at least until it reappears with in or between the Greens and Lib Dems)
Can anyone explain to me what the Blue Labour justification for this is? Who out there will vote Labour because Mahmood prevented a Sudanese Chevening Scholar? And to be honest, why won’t the PM simply overrule her?
It is reasonable to insist on these as criteria. But imho it is naive to imagine they are sufficient to always overcome local opposition. I think the fair trade for concessions on reasonable concerns which should be heeded is concession that some concerns are unreasonable & should not be.
I once told officials that the policy of the Government of the Day was to be pro having cake and pro eating it, in a response to a submission suggesting we should have new rules restricting birthday cakes in schools.
It was the one occasion where the policy implications of the slogan were clear.
"Oh no you don't, and oh no you won't" (Stockport and others, post 2019)
The Greens want NIMBY votes and they want votes from people who want massive renewables investment and they want votes from people who want cheaper housing and lower rents. They can dodge the obvious contradictions of this for a while - luxury of insurgent opposition - but not forever.
"My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it"
New Swingometer! With the dust settling after the seismic Green victory two weeks ago, I take a look at the implications of this historic by-election for the local and devolved elections now less than two months away: open.substack.com/pub/swingome...
These are my right wing principles, if you don’t like them I have others
I've been involved in several citizens' assemblies inc. parliament's Climate Assembly UK & adult social care assembly
This is the first UK government CA...they can be excellent sources of evidence to inform policy making but the design, engagement, and what happens afterwards right really matters!
Darren Jones is due to announce a citizens' assembly as part of the government's consultation on digital ID cards
What is a citizens' assembly and how have they been used before?
See our handy @instituteforgovernment.org.uk explainer ⬇️
Ah ok - I sympathise with a lot of these points - am between teaching classes now but will return to this when I have more time to think
Feels…bold to claim French system represents a solution to fragmentation, volatility and polarisation given French politics right now!
Brevity's got soul.
🌍 Why do not all immigrant groups support progressive parties?
➡️ @korinlind.bsky.social & @antvalentim.bsky.social show immigrants from established democracies are more likely to back green parties than those from (post-)authoritarian regimes www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView
Some characteristically thoughtful engagement with my deliverism essay here from @aveek18.bsky.social, who I think does an excellent job of pushing beyond the debates I discuss to set out what needs investigating and how we should think about the potential implications of different findings
As an IR professor, it's depressing that this is outperforming all others as the best theory of US foreign policy
