The impression I get is that UKIP want to be the most xenophobic nationalist party they can be, without toppling over into totalitarian and neo-nazi or fascist territory. This is not a mindset that will make it easy to build alliances with groups from other European countries.

It seems to be the Anti Green Party, abolishing the carbon tax and promoting mining. The objectives do not say anything obvious about taxation, but presumably a billionaire sponsored party will believe in reducing taxes on the rich.

I suspect the new party will not achieve much.

I was born about a month before the end of Winston Churchill's last premiership (in 1955). I started taking a personal interest in politics in about 1967. I can therefore cover a longer period, with a bit more perspective, than some posters.

I seem to value the pre-Thatcher Prime Minister's more highly than the post Thatcher ones. As to Mrs Thatcher herself, I would be interested to see the definitive biography, written in about 50 years by someone not yet born. It is a pity I will not live that long, but presumably some of the younger readers will.

Looking at the Prime Ministers from 1955, they seem to be a fairly mediocre bunch. The only true great was Churchill, but that was for 1940-45. His post war premiership was definitely an underwhelming anti climax.

First the politicians of the post war consensus era.
1. Sir Winston Churchill (1940-45 and 1951-55).
2. James Callaghan (1976-79) (he is perhaps generally undervalued, because he was Prime Minister for a relatively short time, in difficult circumstances).
3. Harold Macmillan (1957-63).
4. Sir Alec Douglas-Home (1963-64) (another short term Prime Minister, who may not be highly regarded but he almost won in 1964 and I rate him more highly than either Heath or Wilson).
5. Harold Wilson (1964-70 and 1974-76).
6. Edward Heath (1970-74). I did not think much of him at the time.
7. Sir Anthony Eden (1955-57). Oh dear - the great foreign policy specialist, done in by a foreign policy disaster (Suez).

Then Thatcher and her heirs.
8. Mrs Thatcher (1979-90). A significant historical figure, but so divisive. I think it was right that British society and economy needed some changes. I am not so sure that the Thatcher changes were the right ones and I am certain that in some respects she went too far.
9. John Major (1990-97).
10. David Cameron (2010-).
11. Tony Blair (1997-2007). He could have been so much more, if he had not thrown away his chance. He did not approve of the most significant achievements of his government (the constitutional changes inherited from his Labour predecessor John Smith - who shares with Hugh Gaitskell the melancholy fate of being a potentially great Prime Minister who died too soon). Instead Blair chased transient headlines and largely pointless administrative "reforms", which will never be more than footnotes in specialist histories. I despair of his foreign policy.
12. Gordon Brown (2007-10). Even more flawed than Blair.

Further research in The Times. Its December 9, 1918 edition gave some details of the candidates. Mr George John Rowe turned out to be the Tyne district delegate of the Boilermakers' Society. It did not mention where he lived or his place of birth.

The first South Shields Labour candidate was G.J. Rowe in 1918. He does not seem to have contested any other Parliamentary elections. The Times prints a list of nominations, in its edition of December 5, 1918. This confirms that Mr Rowe's first name was George.

Mr Rowe does not seem to have achieved any prominence in public life, so I am unable to confirm if he was a local man or a carpetbagger.

How about PD announcing that, as public spirited Italians wanting to keep Silvio Berlusconi out of power, they will vote to give a Grillo party minority government confidence and supply; without requiring any prior agreement on what the minority government would do.

That way PD can choose the timing of the next general election, by deciding when to withdraw support. The Grillo party should take the major blame for anything that goes wrong whilst they are in government, as well as no longer being a nice shiny anti-system party.

I do not know if this sort of idea would make any sense to Italians. Is there some Italian concept, like the idea in British politics that the Queen's government must be carried on (at least sufficiently to delay the next election for about six months)?

As I recall, from reading the Nuffield election book about the 1955 election, that was the first general election the BBC broadcast in anything like a modern manner. Before that the corporation restricted itself with absurd rules about avoiding political controversy.

The Wikipedia article on 'Presidents of Germany (1919-1945)' explains the Presidential election system.

Under the Weimar constitution, the President was directly elected by universal adult suffrage for a term of seven years; reelection was not limited.

The law provided that the presidency was open to all German citizens who had reached 35 years of age. The direct election of the president occurred under a form of the two round system. If no candidate received the support of an absolute majority of votes cast (i.e. more than half) in a first round of voting, a second vote was held at a later date. In this round the candidate who received the support of a plurality of voters was deemed elected. A group could also nominate a substitute candidate in the second round, in place of the candidate it had supported in the first.

The purpose of the second round seems to be that candidates with no chance would (hopefully) withdraw and that similar groups could combine to support the same candidate.

I think that the Germans adopted the second ballot system, as it existed in the French Third Republic. The second ballot system was discussed, in a book published in 1911 (now available through the Project Gutenberg website), Proportional Representation by John H. Humphreys.

The Reports furnished by His Majesty's representatives abroad show that the second ballot, in one form or another, is, or has been, in force in the majority of continental countries. The forms differ in detail, but reference need only be made to the three chief types. In Germany the two candidates highest at the first poll proceed to a second election. It was this form of the second ballot that was introduced into New Zealand in 1908. In France all candidates in the original election and even fresh candidates may stand at the second election. At this second poll a relative—not an absolute—majority of votes is sufficient to secure the election of a candidate. As a rule only the two candidates highest at the first election take part in the second ballot, and therefore in practice the German and French methods closely approximate to one another. The third type concerns the application of the second ballot to the scrutin de liste or block vote in multi-member constituencies. It was formerly used in the Belgian parliamentary elections, and is still employed in the election for the Belgian Provincial Councils. The candidates who receive the support of an absolute majority of the electors voting at the first ballot are at once declared elected; the candidates next highest on the poll, but only so many as are equal to double the number of vacancies remaining to be filled, take part in a second ballot.

The Aldwick East result is interesting. In southern England the Liberal Democrats often have a significant vote, which tends to get swamped by the Tories support in many contests. If UKIP and the Conservatives are both competitive in a ward, which the Liberal Democrats actively contest, the Lib Dem chances of emerging as the winner increase.

That went well ...

What I meant to say was that the BBC report, I just saw, confirmed Mr Odinga was going to challenge the result. He has a week to take the challenge to the Supreme Court, which then has a couple of weeks to rule on it.

From the BBC

Looking at the wording of the Treaty of Union and the Acts of Union which gave legal effect to the treaty, the Kingdoms of England and Scotland were combined into a united kingdom of Great Britain. Whilst England and Scotland continued to exist, the two former Kingdoms had been ended by being merged into an incorporative union.

The Great British united kingdom, created by the Anglo-Scottish union, was itself subsumed into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 January 1801. After that point there were three parties to the union, so the withdrawal of just one would not automatically end the union itself.

Subsequent developments have created a United Kingdom which now includes the four nations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

None of these components of the union is currently a sovereign state, but they all have somewhat different institutional relationships to the United Kingdom and to a certain extent different laws. I do not see why one nation withdrawing from the relationship would end it between the other parts, any more than the departure of 26 Irish counties to become the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) affected the remainder of the union.

If Scotland now decided to withdraw from the United Kingdom, the remaining three components of the modern United Kingdom would clearly be the successor state.

Some may argue that the union between England and Scotland is more fundamental to the United Kingdom than the other links, but I do not see the legal basis for such a claim today rather than in the 1707-1800 period.

Obviously the more significant candidates there are, the lower the percentage vote needed to win a first past the post election. I seem to recall that there were results in Papua New Guinea where single member, first past the post seats were won with as little as about 5% of the vote.

In the UK there have been general election results, where the winning candidate had a lower percentage vote than in the Eastleigh by-election; but probably not in England. Belfast North in the 1979 general election, is the lowest I have found in a quick and superficial search (27.6% according to F.W.S. Craig).

This is an interesting approach but the Scottish parliamentary boundaries, after the Union and before 1832, were less tied to shire boundaries than in England and Wales. Some district of burgh constituencies included towns in more than one county. Some counties were paired and each county in the pair was represented in alternate parliaments. Orkney and Shetland continued to be linked in a single constituency, as they had been in the Scottish Parliament before the Union.

Boundary changes, in 1832, eliminated the absurdity of representation in alternate parliaments. However an increasing number of county seats included two counties, which did not happen in England until Rutland was combined with part of Lincolnshire in the 1918 redistribution. In the Scottish redistributions from 1868 more seats crossed county boundaries, until there was the three county Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles constituency.

Have you considered an approach which apportions seats between the traditional Scottish counties, with each county having at least one seat of its own. Such an approach would increase inequality between constituencies and produce a number of particularly small seats, but giving Orkney and Shetland individual seats in the Scottish Parliament really concedes t the principle. Why should the mainland counties be represented on a less generous basis than the northern island groups?

General election territorial constituency results, in England, with neither Labour or Conservative in either first or second place (excluding the Speaker's seat).

I have checked all the results from 1929 until 1945.

The most recent instance, in a contested election, was Isle of Ely in 1931. The Liberal candidate defeated someone described as an Independent Agricultural Protectionist. The Labour candidate came third and no Conservative was nominated.

There were also a number of unopposed returns from 1929, where the MP was not either Labour or Conservative.

1929 Liverpool, Scotland (Irish Nationalist).

1931 Newcastle-under-Lyme (Independent Labour), Eddisbury  (National Liberal), Bodmin (Liberal), St Ives (National Liberal), Eye (National Liberal)

1935 Eddisbury, St Ives (both National Liberal)

General election result with neither Conservative or Labour in first or second place (excluding the Speaker's seat, which is usually uncontested by the three traditional national parties and presumably also Northern Ireland).

I suggest that the most recent examples were the single member University seats in England and Wales, in the 1945 general election.

For the University of London, the seat was won by Sir E.G.G. Graham-Little over Mrs M.D. Stocks. F.W.S. Craig classified Graham-Little as National Independent (an Independent MP from 1924, who had supported the National government from 1931 until 1940, and who was presumably backing Churchill in 1945) and Stocks as Independent Progressive (indicating an Independent candidate with both Labour and Liberal supporters). None of the three largest parties nominated a candidate.

The University of Wales seat was a straight fight between Professor W.J. Gruffydd (Liberal) and  
Dr Gwenan Jones of Plaid Cymru. Gruffydd had first been elected in a war time by-election and was re-elected in 1945.

There may be a few more recent Liberal (Democrat)/Nationalist results in Scotland and Wales than have been already noted on this thread, but for a territorial constituency in England I think the criteria could only be met before the Second World War.

There are instances in the early inter war years, for example Bethnal Green South West in 1924 (Liberal, Communist and Conservative candidates finishing in that order - the Communist was the Labour MP elected at the 1923 general election, but the Labour Party had since excluded Communists from receiving Labour nominations).

How about Alcide De Gasperi for the best post war Italian Prime Minister prize? Founder of the Christian Democratic Party and Prime Minister from 1945 until 1953.

I would suggest that the challenges De Gasperi faced were greater than those of his successors. He seems to have been remarkably successful compared to those who came before and after him.

I should extend the argument from my last post, slightly.

The reason, or at least the ostensible reason, why the Liberal Democrats withdrew support from the boundary review was the failure of House of Lords reform. A House of Lords, largely elected by a system of proportional representation, would have also provided some compensation to the Lib Dems for the Commons seats thought likely to be lost as the result of the boundary review.

Having failed to get compensation, either through AV for the Commons or PR in the Lords, there was no longer any advantage in the Liberal Democrats supporting a boundary review which was contrary to their party interest.

Labour had a number of arguments against equalising the electorates of constituencies. Most were nonsense, being concerned with preserving unfair partisan advantage.

On the other hand the Conservatives were also creating a system which they hoped (perhaps wrongly) would enable them to gain a partisan advantage, against both Labour and Liberal Democrat opponents.

The Liberal Democrats were prepared to put up with a potential loss of seats through the boundary review, if it was offset by the Alternative Vote system (which they thought, perhaps wrongly, would help them to win more seats). With the AV idea dead, the Liberal Democrats self interest was to kill the boundary review. Petulance was not involved, just political calculation.

All parties were pursuing partisan self interest, cloaked with appeals to principle. That is what tends to happen in such debates. 

It would be better to equalise each constituency, using the census population rather than the registered electorate. This does seem to be the approach most countries follow.

The real problems are the single member constituency and first past the post elections. Unfortunately we seem further than ever from addressing those issues.

Siloch's interesting contribution seems to suggest that an independent Scotland would re-create the 1603-1707 situation. Scottish ministers would, in theory, lead an independent country but in practice that independence would be severely constrained by English influence.

Before the union the common monarch, resident in England, was far more likely to be guided by his English ministers and English interests than the Scottish ones. King James VI said something about finding it easier to govern Scotland with a pen from Whitehall, than a sword in Scotland.

During the union, Scottish politicians have found it easier to influence the United Kingdom than their pre-union predecessors had to be taken into account in London. A fair number of Prime Ministers have been Scots or at least represented Scottish seats in Parliament, considering the relative sizes of the two countries. In the last century and this; A.J. Balfour was Scottish (representing an English seat), Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (both Scottish and sitting for a Scottish constituency), H.H. Asquith (English sitting for a Scottish seat), Bonar Law (a Canadian born Scot who represented a Scottish seat for part of his career), Ramsay Macdonald (born in Scotland), Winston Churchill (was MP for Dundee during part of his long career), Harold Macmillan (Englishman of Scottish descent), Sir Alec Douglas-Home (Scottish aristocrat representing a Scottish seat), Tony Blair (born and educated in Scotland), Gordon Brown (a Scot and Scottish MP) and David Cameron (very English but undeniably of Scottish descent).

If every state had used the district method to allocate electoral votes, then candidate strategies would alter. Campaigning would focus on swing districts rather than swing states. I suspect that Obama's superior ground game would have ensured a victory.

The United Kingdom (if admitted as one state) would qualify for about a hundred congresspeople. Every one of them would be further left than just about anyone in the current House of Representatives. Even as a thought experiment, healing the breach of 1774 is totally unrealistic.

The last time it happened was 1948.

The Liberal Democrats have members in Northern Ireland. In theory they could organise themselves into a local party to nominate candidates in elections. Liberal Democrat local parties are usually based on a single Parliamentary constituencies, but larger areas are possible.

If there was more than one local party in Northern Ireland, again in theory, they could organise as a "state" party. The state parties of Scotland and Wales as well as the rather shadowy Party in England (which has almost no powers compared to the English regional parties) are the components of the federal party (the one led by Nick Clegg).

In practice, Liberal Democrats in Northern Ireland tend to have dual membership in the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. Not all Alliance Party members would be Liberal Democrats as well.

There are or were a small number of Catholic Unionists. One historic example was the first Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Denis Henry, who was elected Unionist MP for South Londonderry in 1916.

I presume most of the modern non-nationalist Catholics ended up in the Alliance Party. In any event they would be an insignificant factor in the electoral politics of Mid Ulster, based on the past behaviour of the constituency.

Constituency contests, in the parts of Northern Ireland where numbers of Catholics and Protestants are fairly even, can be determined by which community presents the more united front. If one side has only one significant candidate and the other two, this may ensure victory for the more united group.