Not sure if I am getting a bit too obsessed with the idea of a progressive electoral alliance......but i seem to be coming across more and more reasons why it might be a good idea.

A friend of mine gave me a book to read which I would recommend. It's called "Things can only get worse?" by John O'Farrell. It's very funny. The book starts with the Blair election victory for "New Labour" in 1997. 

The story resonates with me. I was a member of the Labour Party from the late 1970s until the early 1980s. I became disillusioned with the Labour Party never winning any elections, so concentrated on single issues. In the 1980s there were plenty to choose from! Nuclear Disarmament, Poll Tax, Anti-Apartheid, Miners Strike etc etc.

By 1997, everyone was desperate for change and I had rejoined the Labour Party a few months before the election as I was determined to be on the winning side for once! 

Anyway, the author refers to world events as he goes along, recounting the story of the early years of the Tony Blair administration. Remember when George Bush became US President in 2000? He beat Al Gore by a narrow margin. The thing that I had forgotten was the candidate who came third - a Green called Ralph Nader. The results were:

                                 Popular Vote                                Electoral College

George Bush            50, 456,002             47.86%                 271

Al Gore                    50, 999, 897            48.38%                 266

Ralph Nader               2, 882, 955            2.74%                     0


So Bush lost the overall vote, but won because of the electoral college system. We now know how that works, having watched Trump lose to Biden recently. Biden won because he mobilised a united opposition and negotiated the electoral system successfully!

Going back to 2000, Farrell comments:

"In the US, Democrat Al Gore lost the presidency by a whisker to the arch-right-winger George W. Bush, partly because the progressive vote was split by the Green candidate Ralph Nader. Gore was about the greenest candidate ever to have a chance of becoming president, but by gaining nearly 3 million votes, Nader inadvertently let in Bush, the former oil man and architect of the Iraq War. It proved that a left that refused to compromise and unite under one banner was a left condemned to impotent opposition"

Imagine if Al Gore had won that election, how different the world might be now.





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