December 04, 2008

 

Coalitions for Dummies


Many on the left are disputing the idea that the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc are trying to form a coalition government. They claim that the Bloc Quebecois are not actually part of the coalition, because... uh, because they say so.

So what is the proper way to answer this question? Fortunately, I have discovered a simple and effective test:

If your leader's signature is on this document, then your party is part of the coalition.

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October 15, 2008

 

Unexpected winner


I'm too tired to write a decent review of the election right now, so here's something completely trivial. The popular vote totals were:

CPC 37.6, LPC 26.2, NDP 18.2, BQ 10.0, Grn 6.8, Other 1.2

If you plug that into the Hill & Knowlton Predictor, you get the following seat count:

CPC 143, LPC 74, NDP 38, BQ 52, Grn 0, Other 1

And the actual results (pending recounts)?

CPC 143, LPC 76, NDP 37, BQ 50, Grn 0, Other 2

Not bad, especially considering that their formula completely ignores local dynamics.

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December 13, 2005

 

Dogs know what to do with (media reporting on) polls, part 2

Even if the mainstream media doesn't have a liberal bias, it definitely has a Liberal one. Sinister Thoughts brought to my attention a Globe & Mail article which makes it look like the NDP are doomed to lose their Ontario support to the Libs.

The article carries the sub-heading "New Democrats' support level drops to single digits" and gives the numbers as Liberals 40%, Conservatives 24%, and NDP 9%. However, you may have noticed that those numbers only add up to 73%. This means that (unless the Green Party has suddenly jumped into second place with around 27%) the undecideds weren't factored out, which is very unusual for this kind of poll. It looks to me like the Globe left the undecideds in just so they could claim that the NDP was in "single digits."

Don't worry, Dippers, we Tories know how to empathize with those who are victims of shoddy poll reporting. All the more reason why we should work together to get rid of the Grits...

Update: Apparently, the 40-24-9 figure was from the "Which Party has the most momentum towards a federal election?" question, with the undecideds left in. So it looks like this probably isn't an example of the Globe & Mail being biased... just incompetent.

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November 07, 2005

 

Layton pulls the plug (maybe)


Jack Layton is having a press conference. After several minutes of platitudes, he got around to saying that the Liberal response to his health care demands was "unacceptable" and therefore, his party couldn't continue to show "confidence" in the government. (Update: His exact wording was "there's no basis for our party to express confidence in this government.")

However, I got the impression that he was leaving the door open to reversing his position if the Liberals caved to more of his demands.

So, do you think he will actually follow through this time, or will he chicken out and continue to prop up the Liberals?

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November 06, 2005

 

Credit where credit is due

Pardon me while I take this opportunity to compliment the New Democrats. The party has a new poll on their website; it's a tongue-in-cheek survey on corruption in the Liberal Party. This question was my favourite:
The key difference between the Chrétien and Martin governments is that:

a) only 78% of Liberal MPs in Martin’s government were also MPs during Chrétien’s government, including Paul Martin.
b) only 15 of the current Cabinet members were Cabinet ministers in the Chrétien government, including Paul Martin.
c) the Liberal Party now has a different logo.

Head on over and take the quiz, before the NDP webmaster decides to fix the results. ;)

(Hat tip: CalgaryGrit)

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