Blogroll Review

You might have noticed I periodically review what appears in my blogroll on the right of the page. As I am now not aligned to any particular political party I have broadened the scope of the political leanings. The new line-up is as follows;

Tory Bear, Labour List, and Liberal Conspiracy all appear for their respective parties. Iain Dale continues as he is clearly one of the best political bloggers out there; and in addition to Nick Robinson for the BBC, I've added Boulton & Co from Sky News.

Student affairs, and a few other things besides, are neatly covered by fellow ECSU caucus member and Sheffield Education Officer, Joe Oliver; and of course you can catch up with the latest polls on UK Polling Report.

Happy reading!

JR

Big Up to the @DannieGruff

Not usually my style to cover Labour party political broadcasts on this blog, but a special mention goes to NUS NEC member, and former President of Liverpool Guild of Students, Dannie Grufferty.

It goes without saying that she was the best part of the PPB and will star in many other projects in the near future.

Oh, and just a note about her name; it is Dannie, not Danni.

JR

And The Winner Is ...

Ed Miliband at a hustings event for the Labour leadership

The new Labour leader is Ed Miliband!

He doesn't command the support of the majority of his MPs, nor the majority of his members, but he won because the unions supported him over his brother.

You can see the breakdown of the results below.

Results ROUND 1:   MP's  Members  Unions    Total
1 Ed Miliband             10.53%   9.98%     13.82%   34.33%
2 David Miliband        13.09%  14.69%     9.18%    37.87%
3 Ed Balls                    5.01%    3.37%      3.44%    11.79%
4 Andy Burnham          3.01%    2.84%      2.82%     8.68%
5 Diane Abbott            0.88%    2.44%      4.09%     7.42%
Diane Abbott eliminated, her votes distributed to remaining candidates...

Results ROUND 2:   MP's  Members Unions   Total
1 Ed Miliband            11.11%   11.13%   15.23%  37.47%
2 David Miliband       14.02%   15.08%    9.80%    38.89%
3 Ed Balls                   5.18%     3.83%     4.23%   13.23%
4 Andy Burnham         3.03%     3.30%     4.08%   10.41%
Andy Burnham eliminated, his votes distributed to remaining candidates...

Results ROUND 3:   MP's  Members  Unions    Total
1 Ed Miliband            12.12%   12.42%    15.71%  11.26%
2 David Miliband       15.78%   16.08%    10.86%  43.27%
3 Ed Balls                   5.42%     4.82%      5.76%   16.02%
Ed Balls eliminated, his votes distributed to remaining two candidates...

Results ROUND 4:  MP's   Members  Unions    Total
1 Ed Miliband           15.52%    15.20%    19.93%  50.65%
2 David Miliband      17.81%    18.13%    13.40%  49.35%

As you can see, Labour's electoral college system gives a very strange result where the ordinary Labour members only have 1/3 of a say in who becomes their leader. This is in contrast to the Conservatives and the Lib Dems where ordinary members have 100% of a say!

Nevertheless, I congratulate Ed on his victory and look forward to his first PMQs with Cameron.

JR