Washminster

Washminster
Washminster

Friday 1 January 2010

Happy New Year

2010 has now arrived across the world. May I wish a happy new year to all the regular, and to one-off visitors to this blog. As I have indicated in recent posts, 2010 promises to be a particularly interesting year.

Elections will dominate. I will be looking at some of the competitive races in both the British and American elections. The lastest estimates of competitive House of Representatives seats have been made by the leading analysys. CQ Politics reckons that 102 seats are competitive at the moment (70 Democrat held; 32 Republican held) The Rothenbery Political Report thinks there are 61 (47 Democrats; 14 Republican), while the Cook Political Report puts the figures at 49 competitive races (38 Democrat & 11 Republican).

As events in Congress have shown us - there are a lot of procedural tactics available for use in pushing forward/delaying legislation - and we'll be looking at them as they arise. With an election looming in the UK we may be innovative attempts to influence the speed of legislation in Britain too!

During the year I will be undertaking quite a bit of historical research - so I hope to share with you some of the stories from the development of the US Congress; UK Parliament and European Parliament.