After elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish National Party has emerged the leading party for the fourth consecutive election, achieving just one seat short of a majority in an electoral system specifically designed not to produce overall majorities. The party of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had campaigned on the promise of a new independence … Continue reading “Scottish Independence Back on the Agenda”
The line-up for the Biden-Harris Presidential Inauguration includes an extraordinary young poet. Andrea Gorman was named the country’s inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, at just 18. The Inauguration swearing-in ceremony traditionally includes a religious invocation and blessing, given by Father Leo J. O’Donovan and Reverend Dr. Silvester Beaman, a recitation of the Pledge … Continue reading “Presidential Poet”
On Sunday January 10th, Terminator actor and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger posted a powerful video on Twitter. He denounced the violent mob that overtook the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday 6th. Recounting his childhood in Austria after World War II, he linked the Capitol attack to Nazi Germany. My message to my fellow Americans … Continue reading “He is Back*!”
Assuming that anything happens as planned in this extraordinary election campaign, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, and Kamala Harris as Vice-President, on Inauguration Day, 20 January, 2021. The ceremony and traditional celebrations that follow will be much smaller than in previous years because of the coronavirus … Continue reading “Inauguration Day”
New Zealand’s 17 October election was originally scheduled on a historically significant day: 19 September, the annual anniversary of the date in 1893 when New Zealand women became the first in the world to legally vote. It was postponed because of Covid but was historic anyway: the Labour party became the first in 24 years … Continue reading “New Zealand gives Jacinda Ardern and Labour a Landslide”
The race to the White House is heating up, but there’s still a long way to go to the 3 November election. Because in this year’s election the incumbent President, Republican Donald Trump, is standing again, most of the focus so far has been on the campaign to become the Democratic candidate. Some hopefuls declared … Continue reading “U.S. Presidential Marathon”
With the Conservative Party winning an overall majority in the UK Parliament for the first time since 2017, Prime Minister Boris Johnson means to make good on his promise to, “Get Brexit done.” The Conservatives won at least a 78 seat majority on 12 December, with 364 seats,a much more comfortable position than the minority … Continue reading “Brexit is Back On”
Australia’s Liberal National Coalition has scored a surprise victory in the federal election called by Liberal Party Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The minority coalition in power was behind in opinion polls for a year, and no one expected them to win. Scott Morrison was the sixth Prime Minister in six years, with both parties having … Continue reading “Australian Election Turnaround”
Voting in the European Parliamentary elections started on 23 May in the Netherlands and the UK — where the elections weren’t supposed to take place at all. One more chapter in the chaos of Brexit. The UK was supposed to leave the EU on 29 March, following the Brexit referendum. However, since the Conservative Government … Continue reading “The Election that wasn’t Supposed to Happen”
Political pundits were very guarded in their predictions for the U.S. midterm elections after the surprise victory of Donald Trump in 2016. Pundits and polling organisations also got their predictions wrong in the Brexit referendum and last U.K. election. So it was almost a surprise that the midterm results were pretty much as expected. The … Continue reading “Shock: an Election that Went as Predicted”
