Wednesday, July 05, 2006

More predictions

Last week I blogged about Matt Robson's Crystal Ball

Today's Robson-on-politics says,

Robson's crystal ball

I've had feed-back from my prediction National will lose again in 2008. Let me outline three reasons for my confidence:

The economy: The Labour-Progressive-Green (LPG) bloc won 47.6% (41.1% + 5.3% + 1.2%) of votes cast last September midway through a six-month period of zero economic growth.

The Nat-ACT-United-NZF (NAUN) alternative got 49% (39.1% + 1.5% + 2.7% + 5.7%), but National still managed to end up in Opposition. The economy will be much stronger in 2008 than it was during the zero growth second-half of 2005.

http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/partystatus.html

In-fighting on the Right: United and NZF promised to support the party with the most seats to form a government last year. ACT's capture of two seats was the most critical factor in last September's government-formation outcome.

Had National kept Epsom and those two ACT seats instead been National seats, then it would have been 50-50 seats a piece between National and Labour and there is no question that that would have delivered a National-United-NZ First government supported on confidence by the Maori Party.

Rodney was the Left's saviour last September and on-going in-fighting across NAUF will be even more intense in 2008.

3 comments:

Blair said...

What utter horse-drivel!

The absence of winning Epsom would not have given the Nats two more MPs. It would have ensured Robson and Labour's Chauvel were in parliament instead. Clearly he is talking out his arse.

andrewfalloon said...

He clearly doesn't understand MMP.
Does anybody know his email address so this can be drawn to his attention?? :)

Anonymous said...

Blair: It is true that if National had won that 1.5% party vote that went to Rodney then that would have been two more National seats.

But if ACT had won 1.5% of vote, but lost Epsom, then it is true that National wouldn't necessarily have got 2 more seats - probably no extra seats.

Either way, Rodney did a great job for Helen.