Harman wins by playing the system better

[matgb]

I said:

I hope for Johnson, but think Harman has a strong chance, and she made a blatent play for Cruddas's second prefs near the end,

And after the results are called, we see that:

Electoral college results

Candidate	1st round	2nd round	3rd round	4th round	5th round
Hilary Benn	16.40%	18.22%	22.33%
Hazel Blears	11.77%
Jon Cruddas	19.39%	20.39%	23.89%	30.06%
Peter Hain	15.32%	16.42%
Harriet Harman	18.93%	21.23%	25.88%	33.58%	50.43%	ELECTED
Alan Johnson	18.16%	23.74%	27.90%	36.35%	49.56%

Her blatant grab for his support worked like a charm. Cruddas won the first round, but barely picked up any second preferences, Johnson was picking up more until close to the end, when Harman then jumped ahead with Jon's votes. Interesting times it seems. Lots of people on the Labour blogs bitching about the voting system, one even said it was "stalinist". To me it remains the best way of determining a result acceptable to all, allows for multiple candidates rather than requiring a stitch up before the actual vote and is invaluable in a close contest, as this undoubtedly was. It also shows that Harman knew to play for second and third preferences a lot more than others, apparently internal canvassing wasn't asking for preferences at wll--and the media constantly referring to it as a "complicated" system was really annoying me throughout.

But most important aspect: Blears last place on barely 11% of the vote. Labour members renew my faith in humanity a little with that one, word has it there was a massive cheer when her elimination was announced.

Loads of politics posts in a row. Time for some frivolity methinks...

Comments

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Let us not forget that Harperson was, in a previous incarnation as Secretary of State for Social Security, the first cabinet minister sacked by Tony Blair for being crap at her job. To be honest I'm not expecting much from her, given her past track record, closeness to Gordon, and endorsement from Polly (albeit largely through being a particularly monstrous member of the monstrous regiment); but Harpic does have the saving grace of Not Being Blears.

Who described the voting system as "stalinist" then? Harding? Akehurst?

[matgb]

Some twonk on Labour Home, I hit the B4L feeds heavily when I heard it'd been called, and didn't get very far for ages. Political Betting was fairly good, and Akehurst was the person who gave me the link to the results on the Labour site (their front page is very poor). He's also just put up the first round prefs, trying to sort out his cruddy formatting now. Hmm.
1st round, MPs, Members, Unions, Total
Benn, 4.26, 7.21, 4.93, 16.4
Blears, 4.99, 3, 3.77, 11.77
Cruddas, 4.63, 5.67, 9.09, 19.39
Hain 4.81, 3.87, 6.64, 15.32
Harman, 6.54, 8.04, 4.35, 18.93
Johnson, 8.08, 5.53, 4.55, 18.16

Let's see if that worked.

[matgb]

Nope, try a different method

1st round, MPs,  Members, Unions, Total
Benn,      4.26, 7.21,    4.93,   16.4
Blears,    4.99, 3,       3.77,   11.77
Cruddas,   4.63, 5.67,    9.09,   19.39
Hain       4.81, 3.87,    6.64,   15.32
Harman,    6.54, 8.04,    4.35,   18.93
Johnson,   8.08, 5.53,    4.55,   18.16

[getawaywithit.livejournal.com]

Interesting that the preferences split almost exactly evenly between Harman and Johnson - she had a .77% lead in the first round, and then a .87% lead at the end.

I do find myself wondering who the 1% of voters are who put 1) Blears 2) Cruddas though...

[matgb]

I suspect some of the latter is in fact people only using one vote, I know at least one commenter that I read only voted for Blears, which would put Jon's percentage up alongside everyone else.

But yeah, that is a strange switch; but then some people in NI voted DUP first SF second or vice versa so stranger things have happened.

[getawaywithit.livejournal.com]

That's probably a decent explanation for most of it - I was forgetting that it was percentages and not absolute totals. While there probably are some who voted that way, IMO Blears was the candidate I could most imagine people voting solely for on the grounds that the other five might be capable of developing opinions independently.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

Someone who voted for Blears and is bright enough to write? Blimey.

[matgb]

You've not encountered Mr Akehurst then?
http://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/

Although the parody is a bit more fun at times:
http://lukeakehurstsblog.blogspot.com/

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

http://lukeakehurstsblog.blogspot.com/

'Kin roared!

[mooism.livejournal.com]

11% seems quite a lot for a 6th-of-6 candidate though — more than half what the leading candidates had at that stage.

Harman was in the top two in each round, so I don’t see how anyone can claim her winning is anything to do with a perverse voting system.

[matgb]

I don’t see how anyone can claim her winning is anything to do with a perverse voting system.

Given the much larger membership of Labour, and that I've met some blithering idiot LibDems, I can, there are a lot of people out there that think FPTP is the way to go and refuse to understand anything else; combine that with the BBC meme of the "complicated" voting system making it hard to predict and the pollsters getting it very far wrong, I can see why they don't like it. They're wrong, but I get it.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I think the Stalinist quote might reflect that MPs have such a heavy weighting - each of the three consituencies return one third of the result (if I have followed it clearly), so that the MPs can skew the result compared to individual members. Did someone mention OMOV?!

[matgb]

Good point, hadn't thought about it in that way. But some of the commentary was definitely anti-AV, and much of that in a very ill-informed way. Ah well.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

The important thing is that Hazel Blears is utterly destroyed. One small victory in the War Against Intelligence. Good f***ing riddance to her.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I'm happy with that, to be honest.

[matgb]

In the 'Johnson didn't win' sort of context?

[(Anonymous)]

That helps...but also how far Cruddas got, and the sound beating administered to Blears.

Oooh, on the subject of Alan...

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

That last was me, btw.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I've always suspected Harman of Trot-control-freak tendencies, but also recall how crap she was before Blair sacked her. For more background see rozk here.

[matgb]

Hmm, that is an interesting story, and ties in with what I've heard from other sources as well. Still, she's in a daft job and won't get a cabinet role; as a 'rally the troops' candidate she might do OK.

Thanks for the link; another journal to explore it seems.

[tyrell.livejournal.com]

Very pleased that Blears got kicked in the face. Would have preferred one or two of the others to Harman, though.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

Yup, it's not a good result (which of us expected that?) but it is at least an amusing one. :-)

Harman may be OK in this job ... it's not like having a department to run. And just because she annoys me doesn't mean she annoys everyone.

[matgb]

Alternately, as linked in the comment above:
http://rozk.livejournal.com/158986.html

That ties in with some stuff I'd heard about her and Hewitt, so, well, we'll see.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

* dances about singing *

Blears came last! Blears came last!

And, more importantly, this was exactly what you predicted, was it not, my love? I think the smugmode icon is called for on your behalf ;)

[matgb]

Well, the order they were knocked out was exactly matching my preferences all the way through until the final result, I had a slight preference for Johnson but it was very close, an dI had Cruddas down third. Wonder how much the QT debate did affect it? A lot of voters will probably have only seen that.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I suspect quite a bit. Harman DID perform very well.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

Eurgh, same icon used by different people in adjacent comments => brain explody.

[matgb]

I stole it from her in the fist place, and she told me to use it. So I did. It gets worse elsewhere, the "Angels have the phone box" icon is very popular at the moment.

And I've seen entire threads with the same icon used by four or five different people. Which does make it very hard to follow at times; weird how icons become a visual key to a person so quickly.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I always used to be surprised at how easy it was to identify who was saying what when all I had to go on was a username. Then I was amazed at how easily an icon would mentally override the username.

I suppose it makes sense; text is a more recent invention than vision.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

At least we're not saying the exact same thing at the same time today.